King Politics

Go Texas, beat OU. I'll be traveling to Dallas this weekend for the annual gridiron grudge match in the Cotton Bowl. Hook 'em.

Labels: Sports

Elinor Ostrom will share this year's Nobel Prize for Economics. Her groundbreaking text Governing the Commons completely reoriented the way economists, political scientists and policymakers conceptualized public goods and private gain. If you're serious about understanding how society provides public goods in the midst of a private market then Governing the Commons is essential reading. Read it. Now.

Labels: Book Review, Economics, Elinor Ostrom

The scores for fourth grade math test takers were flat. A first in 19 years. In fact, progress was greater before No Child Left Behind. That Act calls for 100% proficiency by 2014. Currently, only 39% of fourth graders are proficient.

There is widespread disparity in the results. In Massachusetts, where state leaders care about education and recognize that a smart citizenry leads to prosperity, they engaged in meaningful structural reform, which resulted in a 57% proficiency rate. In Mississippi, where the leadership is myopic to why education matters, the proficiency rate is just 16%. f

Cheers.

Labels: Education, Mississippi

While much of the political world drooled over Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and her decision to back Democratic health care reform efforts, Kathleen Parker observes that the GOP has several potential female leaders. Thank goodness, because the GOP needs to break out of its white, male rut.

Parker focuses on California's Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman, and then Liz Cheney and Megan McCain. The inclusion of McCain is a mistake. Her potential contribution is trivial. The others have teeth, but I'm not sure the GOP base will ever embrace a gay, so Cheney's out.

Fiorina and Whitman are too moderate for the southern GOP. They might do well in California, but like Texas's Kay Bailey Hutchison, the reason Fiorina or Whitman weren't selected by John McCain over the Palin train wreck is because they are too socially liberal. The GOP is simply too exclusive to really embrace any of these women. Try again Parker.

Labels: GOP, Olympia Snowe, Women

Right-wing radio host looks to be too controversial for the NFL. First, the player's union unofficially opposed his inclusion in the ownership team to buy the St. Louis Rams. Now, that ownership group has dumped Limbaugh because his participation complicates things.

Analysis
NFL owners are pretty political, but they're sophisticated about it, unlike Limbaugh. They're very likely to make political donations, which the players don't mind. The problem with Limbaugh is that his views are so conservative and outspoken, and the NFL has so many African Americans who I can assure you largely disagree with most of his views. What player would want to help Limbaugh get richer?

Labels: Rush Limbaugh, Sports

Then here's some regulation you can get behind. The CALM Act seeks to turn the volume down on obnoxiously loud commercials.

H/T: Chris Lawrence

Labels: Technology

Even though she is the minority party, turns out that Maine's Olympia Snowe (R) was the key player in Senate health care negotiations. Dana Milbank paints an unflattering portrayal of her indecisiveness. I disagree. I would rather have a well-crafted bipartisan compromise (that at least some Republicans can live with) than a rushed, partisan piece of legislation. Milbank's has forgotten that the Framers deliberately designed a legislative framework that made passing legislation difficult. We should be thankful. Can you imagine what kind of crap Congress could pass if passing legislation was easy?

Labels: Health Care, Olympia Snowe

The armed forces exceeded recruitment goals. More than 169,000 folks volunteered for active duty military service, which was 3% more than hoped for. High unemployment is often a boon for recruiters because there are more highly-qualified applicants willing to take the plunge into military service.

You just hope that these good folks know what they're in for. Estimates predict a good number of these new recruits, especially in the Army, will see time in Iraq or Afghanistan before too long.

Labels: Military

Today, the Dow closed at 10,015, up 144 points on the day. The WSJ is giddy. In the grand scheme we're still far off from its 2007 peak of 14,164. At the same time, we're miles above the valley of 6,547 hit earlier this year.

One analyst at Forbes predicts this is just a pit stop on the way 11,245 sometime in the next 9 to 12 months.

While this is good news for our portfolios, it does little to help the pain of high unemployment or middle-class wages cut in half.

A natural fear, is that big banks will pump excess capital in to mergers and acquisitions (it's a quick way to big profits). However, doing so often creates unnatural bubbles, which is the clearly the last thing our economy needs another dose of.f

Another fear is that we repeat our mistakes with banks that are "too big to fail."

Labels: Stock Market, Unemployment

What can we do about the youth violence that took the life of Derrion Albert?

President Obama sent Attorney General Eric Holder and Education Secretary Arne Duncan to Chicago to meet with local officials about curbing Chicago's youth violence. The high rates of violence are embarrassing to the city, the president and the country. Some speculate that Chicago's violence cost it the Olympics, which would be an unfair criticism considering the crime rates in Rio where the 2016 Olympics will be held.

Still, the violent crime, disproportionately affecting Black youth must stop. It is bad enough Rush Limbaugh loves to point out the Black-on-Black nature of violent crime. If that does not shame Blacks into action, I do not know what will.

Read the rest at The Loop.

Labels: Black America, The Loop