Spreading the wealth

TaxVox, commenting on the idea that Obama’s tax policies would be redistributive, while McCain’s wouldn’t be:
… [If] McCain favors a flat tax, he should tell us and explain why he thinks it is a good idea to redistribute income by raising taxes on the middle class and giving the money to the wealthy.
The argument would [...]

Courtney Cox sounds miserable

This interview with Courtney Cox (registration required) in Marie Claire magazine is one of the most depressing things I’ve read in a while.  Punchline: Gorgeous, talented, happily-married mother has it all and cannot enjoy it because she’s terrified of looking a day older than 25.
The guy at the bar, she thinks, wouldn’t want her.
The big [...]

Adjusted expectations about health care

I was struck in a recent economics seminar when the relatively-conservative economists in the room suggested that people might not be purchasing long-term care insurance at higher rates because they’re expecting a major national health care reform that will take care of such costs.
Now, economists don’t assume such radical transformations lightly–or assume that others are [...]

Milbank on the Stevens trial

Dana Milbank’s latest dispatch details how Ted’s wife attempted to convince everyone that those so-called bribes weren’t bribes because she didn’t like them (well, most of them).
The huge stainless-steel grill that magically appeared on their deck? “I was very angry,” she said. The armchair and ottoman they were given? “I was very unhappy when I [...]

The problem with the Right: No longer interesting

Chris Buckley–son of the father of the modern Conservative movement–loses his National Review column after endorsing Obama.  An interesting footnote in the transformation of the Right from entirely intellectual to anti-intellectual.  What would his father have done if he still ran the magazine?
Were his pup still alive, Buckley said, “what my dear old dad probably [...]

Busy

I’m rushing to finish a literature review on the economic effects of divorce reform, but wanted to post a few random thoughts:
1. Kudos to Paul Krugman, recipient of this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics.  He received the prize for his work on trade and economic geography, but I knew him first as an expert on [...]

Obama’s big ad buy

Obama will buy 1/2-hour ads in primetime on major networks 6 days before the election.  This alone will make opting out of the federal campaign finance system worth it.

CT Supreme Court: Separate is not Equal

From the Hartfard Courant, via Swampland:
Same-sex couples won the right to marry in Connecticut in an historic ruling by the Supreme Court today. Citing the equal protection clause of the state constitution, the justices ruled that civil unions were discriminatory. In a 4-3 decision released at 11:30 a.m., the majority wrote that the state’s “understanding [...]

Early voting underway

The folks over at NRO are eager to paint the lower-than-expected early turnout in Ohio as a bad sign for Obama’s GOTV efforts.  I’m not sure what to make of it myself, but would note that there’s still lots of time left until those ballots are due.
Meanwhile, North Carolina officials are bracing themselves for high [...]

The latest and greatest election coverage

Just catching up on Political Lunch podcasts, and this one, from last Thursday, provides some great info on how to access all the interactive election coverage on twitter and other such hip/21st century  sites.