News from around the web: 2009-09-04

Is this the Warren Christopher Presidency writ large? Roosevelt Institute Braintruster Marshall Auerback argues that the divide-and-compromise approach is dead-wrong for Obama.

This is a video clip I sent Barry. I knew he would find a good use for it, vacation or not! Read the comments too.

There was a time, not all that long ago, when the U.S. pretended that it viewed war only as a "last resort,"… In the 64 years since the end of WWII, we have started and fought far more wars and invaded and bombed more countries than any other nation in the world — not even counting the numerous wars fought by our clients and proxies. Those are just facts. History will have no choice but to view the U.S. — particularly in its late imperial stages — as a war-fighting state.

Uh-oh. While investors have been distracted by the brightly coloured balloons of rebounding economic output, the Baltic Dry Index, a measure of shipping costs for commodities, has been quietly deflating. Daily rates for leasing the largest Capesize vessels are down about a quarter over the past fortnight.

Runaway warming of the Arctic threatens to spread climate havoc across the globe in the coming decades, according to a new study by the environment group WWF. But has the process already begun? Climate scientists meeting at the World Climate Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, where the report was launched today, are in two minds.

The figure represents an average of around ¥267,200 per capita, also an all-time high, and a rise of 3 percent from the previous year, data from the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry show. Medical costs for people 65 or older stood at ¥17.74 trillion, or 52 percent of the total, and averaged ¥646,100 per person

The next prime minister is known for being bland in his speeches. His wife, however, is anything but. Miyuki Hatoyama, a former actress and wife of Yukio Hatoyama — who is expected to be sworn in as prime minister on Sept. 16 — promises to become one of Japan’s most colorful first ladies ever.

"Groups that used rewards got significantly higher payoffs than groups that punished," David Rand, a lead study author and postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, said in a Science podcast.

Most observers agree that central banks can claim partial credit for the stabilisation that have been achieved and the prospect of a recovery. This column warns that the general public seems to hold a completely different opinion; trust in central banks has declined and the reaction of central banks to the crisis is generally judged as unsatisfactory. Central bankers all over the world should redouble their efforts to regain the trust of the people towards their institution.

Megan argues as I do that the private sector is better than government at many but not things economic in society. Government has a legitimate role to fulfill and R&D is one of them.

IN MY many years of reporting on the Federal Reserve, I have turned more times than I can count to Allan Meltzer. Volume One of his history of the Federal Reserve (he’s still working on Volume Two) is one of the most thumbed books on my shelf, and I consider him one of the leading authorities on 20th century economic history. Naturally I was intrigued by his criticism of comparisons between the current period and the Great Depression in the Wall Street Journal. It’s a fascinating piece but I have several qualms with it.

Opera 10 final is out, Chrome just turned one year old, and Firefox 3.5 has settled into stability. It’s time once again to break out the timers and speed test today’s web browsers.

Most people have a favorite browser, but if you use two or three, it can be tricky to make sure you’re opening links in the right one… That’s the idea behind Browser Chooser, a Windows app that acts as your default browser and lets you pick which browser to open a link in.

Patrick Neal, head of equity strategy at Jefferies sees gold’s run up as a bearish sign that some investors are preparing for a significant turn lower in stocks.

A good entry in the debate over Keynesian stimulus and Austrian school style restraint as policy in crisis. This is both monetary and fiscal. I must admit to taking Rogoff’s view in 2008 that the Fed needed to raise rates in order to prevent a commodities bubble from getting out of control and worsening the economic crash. Thoma argues the opposite is true. On the fiscal side, I have argued, like Thoma that stimulus has been necessary.

we seem to have two big problems. The first is how a rebalancing of the economy toward manufacturing can actually hope to produce enough jobs to return America to full employment… The second is how to move workers trained for manufacturing or housing construction into the fields which are actually growing, which include health care and education. And there is a third, I suppose, which is how America is to handle persistent higher-than-normal unemployment if neither of the above questions can be satisfactorily answered in the near term.

We know that big banks need reigning in, but Elizabeth Warren argues that it is time for serious oversight of non-bank lenders — like mortgage brokers or payday loan outfits — as well.

The standards, which Mr. Geithner said should be agreed on by the end of 2010 and implemented by the end of 2012, would call for much higher capital requirements at banks and require a much higher quality capital, with a heavy emphasis on equity.

after a while, you can grow quite cold toward your former home, looking at only the numbers involved and quickly forgetting about the memories that were made there