Monday, October 25, 2010

All debtors are not created equal

Why should the government be spending more to fix the economy despite the increase in government debt? Paul Krugman explains it nicely. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/25/sam-janet-and-fiscal-policy/#more-13811

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

For my pot loving and/or nmeeding friends in Cali

http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/10/california-medical-marijuana-pot-card

I needn't have worried. Soon enough, I found Price-Less Evaluations, "the most trusted medical marijuana evaluation center in San Francisco," whose site features a photo of a model in a lab coat and a coupon for a "420 special" (good for a $20 discount on April 20, 2011). Many California pot doctors will ask patients to bring in medical records that prove that their problems are legit (though they don't always check them). But the woman who answered the Price-Less 24-hour info line assured me that despite my lack of documentation, "the doctor can just evaluate you, and he'll decide whether you qualify or not."
.,.....
The receptionist led me back into a hallway, where I saw a stooped, white-haired man in a rumpled pullover—the doctor. "Come on in," he mumbled. I stepped into an office and sat down at the edge of his desk. "So, can cannabis help you in some ways?" he asked, pen poised over a recommendation form. "I think so, yeah," I replied, trying to sound confident.
"So how does it help you?" he asked as the ink dried. "Well," I offered, "I have periodic pain from typing a lot, and in my lower back, and it could help me with that." He smiled. "Good. It's signed right there." The entire conversation had taken less than 90 seconds.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

out of laziness i steal content

From Krugman:
What’s striking about the you’re-so-ignorant critics, however, is their tendency to get all confused about very basic things – to insist that the savings-investment identity somehow implies that government spending can’t increase demand, that the Euler condition is somehow a causal relationship implying that low interest rates cause deflation, that Ricardian equivalence means that even a temporary rise in government spending will be fully offset by reduced consumption.

I believe that what we’re looking at is people who know their math, but don’t know what it means: they can grind through the equations of their models, but don’t have any feel for what the equations really imply.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/math-models-and-mystification/