Why You Can't Trust the Inflation Numbers

Brett Arands explains.

Is Japan at the Tipping Point?

Reuters looks at Japan's government finances.

Obama Is Pro-Business

But economist Don Boudreaux says he isn't pro-market.

Pentagon Pork

Col Andrew Bacevich explains why it is so hard to cut "defense" spending.

S&P Downgrades Japan

Ambrose Evans-Prtichard says that's not just bad news for Japan but for Europe and the United States as well.

The Poor Are not Getting Poorer

Economist Steve Horwitz looks at the evidence.

Fired for Telling the Truth

Reason looks at what happened to one Border Patrol agent.

Track and Field

Have we reached the limits of human performance? And how do you explain Usain Bolt? I think that's pretty obvious.

LBJ Orders Pants

Yes, this really is him. Language maybe NSFW.

Put This On: LBJ Buys Pants from Put This On on Vimeo.

Pro-Regulation Republicans

No amount of paperwork, no burden on business, no intrusion on personal privacy is too great when it comes to fighting illegal immigration.

Tennessee First

Local officials spent a lot of time, effort and money trying to get some spinoff from Chattanooga's Volkswagen plant. Me? I expected this all along.

The Anti-Illinois?

The Wall Street Journal praises Georgia's pla to cut its income tax rates and to remove many exemptions on sales tax.

But maybe they should wait and see if the General Assembly passes it before praising the state.

The Guys We Put in Charge

The New York Times looks at the last Christian in a formerly Christian town in Iraq.

They Had to Destroy the Village to Save It

No, really.

The Overlords of immigration

Bryan Caplan looks at the statist and collectivist philosophy behind the anti-immigration movement.

Virginia Isn't Southern Anymore

Well, at least the D.C. Metro area isn't.

I, Toaster

Kane for Governor?

Pro wrestler Glenn Jacobs talks politics.

The Fabulous Fargos

Jackie and Don reunite in Nashville.

Gov. Nathan Deal Says

Putting drug users in prison is draining the state's treasury. So he wants to put them in halfway houses and treatment centers.

John Green

Paul Krugman's Inferiority Complex

Robert Wenzel nails it.

Japan Takes Another Giant Step in Bathroom Technology

They are so far ahead of us it isn't funny.

Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior

Amy Chua writes:

I've thought long and hard about how Chinese parents can get away with what they do. I think there are three big differences between the Chinese and Western parental mind-sets.

First, I've noticed that Western parents are extremely anxious about their children's self-esteem. They worry about how their children will feel if they fail at something, and they constantly try to reassure their children about how good they are notwithstanding a mediocre performance on a test or at a recital. In other words, Western parents are concerned about their children's psyches. Chinese parents aren't. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently.

For example, if a child comes home with an A-minus on a test, a Western parent will most likely praise the child. The Chinese mother will gasp in horror and ask what went wrong. If the child comes home with a B on the test, some Western parents will still praise the child. Other Western parents will sit their child down and express disapproval, but they will be careful not to make their child feel inadequate or insecure, and they will not call their child "stupid," "worthless" or "a disgrace." Privately, the Western parents may worry that their child does not test well or have aptitude in the subject or that there is something wrong with the curriculum and possibly the whole school. If the child's grades do not improve, they may eventually schedule a meeting with the school principal to challenge the way the subject is being taught or to call into question the teacher's credentials.

The Guys We Put in Charge

Ten percent of the Iraqi workforce is employed by the government, making it the largest employer in the nation.

The Economics of the Dave Matthews Band

Dave makes a lot of money.

Killer Mochi

And I thought firing guns in the air at midnight was dangerous.

Dignity Doesn't Travel

Brain Doherty looks at airport insecurity.

The Federal Government Isn't America

Robert Higgs explains.

Star Trek Fan Survey

My pal Virginia Postrel is doing this for a book she's working on. If you've got a little time, pleass fill it out.

Don't Tell Al Gore

The New York Times has a very good article on for-profit education in India that contains this observation:

A few months earlier, power blackouts that rural Indians always suffered silently triggered a violent reaction. Why? Umred was just another small town in the middle of nowhere, dusty and underwhelming. But Umred had begun to dream, townspeople told me, because of television, because of cousins with tales of call-center jobs and freedom in the city. Once Umred contracted ambition, blackouts became intolerable. A psychological revolution, a revolution in expectations, had taken place.
Enlarge This Image

“Electricity is essential to ambition,” an energetic young man named Ravindra Misal explained to me.

Youth Unemployment in Europe

The jobless rate for people under 30 is well into the double digits in much of the Eurozone, and the New York Times reports that strong worker protection laws are to blame:

The problem goes far beyond youth unemployment, which is at 40 percent in Spain and 28 percent in Italy. It is also about underemployment. Today, young people in Southern Europe are effectively exploited by the very mechanisms created a decade ago to help make the labor market more flexible, like temporary contracts.

Because payroll taxes and firing costs are still so high, businesses across Southern Europe are loath to hire new workers on a full-time basis, so young people increasingly are offered unpaid or low-paying internships, traineeships or temporary contracts that do not offer the same benefits or protections.

“This is the best-educated generation in Spanish history, and they are entering a job market in which they are underutilized,” said Ignacio Fernández Toxo, the leader of the Comisiones Obreras, one of Spain’s two largest labor unions. “It is a tragedy for the country.”

Yet many young people in Southern Europe see labor union leaders like Mr. Fernández, and the left-wing parties with which they have been historically close, as part of the problem. They are seen as exacerbating a two-tier labor market by protecting a caste of tenured older workers rather than helping younger workers enter the market.

The Year in Review

By Dave Barry.

If the Federal Government Were a Private Business

Congress would be raking its executives across the coals.

Sarah Jarosz

HT: Rick Henderson

The Top 50 Headlines of 2010

No. 25 is particularly apt.

Japanese MMA

Dave Meltzer reports it is on the ropes.

When the SHTF

Will hipsters survive?

China Has Seen the Future

And it's coal.