In a strange bit of synergy, Tim Harford writes a column on George Akerlof's famous paper on used cars:In 1966 an assistant economics professor, George Akerlof, tried to explain why this is so in a working paper called "The Market for 'Lemons.' " His basic insight was simple: If somebody who has plenty of experience driving a particular car is keen to sell it to you, why should you be so keen to buy it?Akerlof showed that insight could have...

Bolivia's government just seized the country's natual gas industry.The measure is expected to affect about 20 foreign oil companies, including Spain's Repsol, Petrobras of Brazil, Britain's BP and British Gas, US-based ExxonMobil and French group Total.Although the move was expected to have little impact on global energy supplies, financial markets reacted by pushing prices higher."It's part of a trend of governments taking strident action to...

Happy May Day! Or should that be "mayday"? You know it's the end of term (grading, grading, grading) when friendly academic bloggers mostly just point readers to other good links on the web.Let me add one that I found particularly entertaining. Check out "I'm the Decider (Koo-Koo-Ka-Choo)." It's worth a listen. I've not been reading many other blogs, so I don't know if this has already been widely linked. Filed as: The Decider

All hail fake news--the last bastion of true journalism.Bill Kristol, a prominent member of the Project for a New American Century, stopped by the Colbert Report last night and, well, let's just say he wasn't coddled.A little taste:Colbert: Speaking of thinking alike, you were a member, or are a member of the New Project for the American Century, correct?Kristol: I am.Colbert: Were or am, am?Kristol: Were and am.Colbert: How's that project...

...it brings out the wackos. Via Yglesias:Andy McCarthy correctly observes that if we start a war with Iran, Iran will fight back. Then he mentions offhandedly that "The retaliation we most have to worry about is a nuclear attack against our homeland." A nuclear attack with what? The nuclear bombs they don't have? Even more remarkably, McCarthy favors taking action against Iran. I certainly don't, but I certainly wouldn't if I thought Iran...

Washington Post:Escalating the threats between Washington and Tehran, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned Wednesday that his country would strike U.S. targets around the world in the event it is attacked over its refusals to curb its nuclear program."If the U.S. ventured into any aggression on Iran, Iran will retaliate by damaging U.S. interests worldwide twice as much as the U.S. may inflict on Iran," Khamenei said in a...

The Washington Post:The Senate voted this afternoon to cut some of the money President Bush has requested for the Iraq war and use it instead to increase border patrols against illegal immigrants and buy new boats and helicopters for the Coast Guard.Who voted for it?Mr. Gregg angrily rejected as "pure poppycock" any suggestion that his measure would deprive front-line troops in Iraq and Afghanistan of what they need. Fifty-two Republicans and...

Rob mentions the provocative article in the recent issue of Foreign Affairs by Keir Lieber and Daryl Press on the possible achievement of nuclear primacy by the United States. In the article (as well as a more detailed analysis forthcoming in International Security), the authors claim that[t]oday, for the first time in almost 50 years, the United States stands on the verge of attaining nuclear primacy. It will probably soon be possible for the...

Ruth Marcus writes about Ted Kennedy as people on the Hill know him: a Senator who pursues bipartisan compromise in the spirit of actually legislating for the common good.Look, there's Ted Kennedy, shoulder-to-shoulder with John McCain, Republican presidential front-runner, just after the collapse of the immigration deal the pair had brokered. And there he is, again, right behind a beaming Mitt Romney -- Kennedy's '94 Senate opponent,...

One of the (many) flaws in the Bush administration's rationale for invading Iraq stemmed from Hussein's history as a vector of proliferation. There wasn't any. In the worst-case scenario, in which Hussein somehow acquired nuclear weapons, we would have little reason to be concerned that he might transfer weapons or weapons technology to anyone else--nasty regimes, terrorists, or whomever. That didn't mean it would be hugs and puppies if Hussein...

Rep. Charles H. Taylor (R-N.C.) decides to take a 'principled stand' and is holding up $10 million dollars necessary to buy the land where a monument to the passengers and crew members of United Flight 93 is to be built.Why is Taylor, chairman of the House Interior Appropriations subcommittee, holding up the funds?For Taylor, a large landowner in the mountains of western North Carolina, the issue comes down to principle: The federal government...

G. John Ikenberry has a post up at TPMCafe on what he terms the "security trap". The piece argues that a number of major changes (American Unipolarity, a 'revolution' in the concept of state sovereignty, lack of common threat as in the Cold War, and the rise of a more democratic international community) have produced conditions such that......as the Bush administration tries to solve the nation'’s security problems by exercising its power or...