Category Archives: United States

Great article by Emily Oster and Geoffrey Kocks on vaccination in California: Under-vaccination is a significant policy problem. As earlier generations knew, people die of measles, and of whooping cough, and of other diseases that vaccines can prevent. Figuring out … Continue reading →

A former student is thinking of going to law school to then become a JAG. He shared with me some thoughts on a book Saving Sandoval, by Craig Drummond. According to the blurb: Saving Sandoval is the true account of … Continue reading →

The homeless and their advocates envision tiny houses as a practical solution to soaring housing costs. Environmental activists tout them for encouraging a minimalist, non-wasteful lifestyle and for being far more sustainable than recreational vehicles. Tiny houses have also fired … Continue reading →

Nobody has to be a professional or even amateur historian to understand the import of General John Kelly’s words (below), stated in his capacity as Chief of Staff of the President of the United States, in a formal public interview, … Continue reading →

It almost seems like the uncontrolled landlords are quite content to keep rent control in place: their rents go up substantially. In this paper, we exploit quasi-experimental variation in the assignment of rent con-trol in San Francisco to study its … Continue reading →

Vox’s German Lopez reviews Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform, by John Pfaff. Prison population growing because violent offenders being incarcerated at state and local level, not Federal.  Pfaff: “In reality, only … Continue reading →

Granddad had a gun He died when I was still a kid, but his memory is vivid to me. He fished, and he hunted. He had German shorthaired pointers – sleek, nervous, beautiful dogs that might, or might not, help … Continue reading →

The director says everyone is filling up their tanks etc, so demand is overwhelming the system. En cuanto al restablecimiento del servicio, Díaz sostuvo que se sitúa en un 45% de los abonados.“Esto está fluctuando. A veces hay unos generadores … Continue reading →

Puerto Rico, the biggest government in the U.S. to ever go bankrupt, will argue this week that it shouldn’t be treated like a broke business during the proceedings: Its residents, not creditors, should come first.Government lawyers will argue with bondholders … Continue reading →

Full story in NYT. And for what?  So he could do the same to other pledges in future years? A night that began with laughs and elaborate handshakes quickly devolved into dangerous drunkenness. The pledges were forced to participate in … Continue reading →

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the trustee for Puerto Ricos COFINA bonds not to make a $16 million payment due on June 1, allowing creditors to litigate competing claims to the money that could be central to how the … Continue reading →

Ira Kukin was a chemist, and was the benefactor of Henry Rosovsky’s dream, the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies.  The couple times I met him as an Academy Scholar, he was engaged and curious. Yeshiva University mourns the … Continue reading →

Computerworld filed a FOIA request for H-1B gender data last year and was told that providing such information would be “unreasonably burdensome.” “In order to determine the gender of H-1B applicants, USCIS staff would have to manually search each applicant’s … Continue reading →

But now, for the first time, a staggering fiscal cost has been calculated: $520 million annually. A new study, described as the most comprehensive look ever at the expense of homelessness on a community, has determined that more than $3 … Continue reading →

The relevant quote: CBO and JCT estimate that, in 2018, 14 million more people would be uninsured under the legislation than under current law. The increase in the number of uninsured people relative to the number under current law would … Continue reading →