News from around the web: 2009-12-12

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Edward

• Americans Owe Less, but That’s Not Entirely Good News – NYTimes.com
• Why it May Take Almost Seven Years for Unemployment to Reach Five Percent – Mark Thoma
• ‘No chance’ Ireland will be forced out of monetary union – Independent.ie (Of course they are going to say this)
• Billion Dollar Bribe, Bryan Caplan | EconLog ("Suppose you had a billion dollars to spend in Washington to advance liberty. What’s the biggest libertarian policy reform your billion could buy? How precisely should you spread your money around?")
• Economists Revising Up Fourth Quarter Growth Projections – Real Time Economics – WSJ
• EU backs Gordon Brown’s call for global tax on financial institutions – Telegraph
• Paul Kedrosky – Tiger Woods Won’t Win 19 Majors — Nicklaus’s Record is Safe
• FT.com | Money Supply | A windfall tax in the US? (I don’t have a view on this. In general, I think windfall taxes are poor economics.
• U.S. Freezes $2 Billion in Iran Case – WSJ.com
• Fernholz vs Taibbi – Felix Salmon
• Goldman Sachs Had Bigger Role in AIG – WSJ.com
• Elin Nordegren Woods: A closer look at the stunning wife at the center of Tiger’s alleged scandal
• Daily Kos: Taibbi is factually wrong on Obama’s economic team

  I think this piece slants way too far toward a full-throated Administration defense but it has merit. 1. Obama is a centrist, not a liberal 2. His advisors were never liberal 3. Congress and lobbyists are to blame for watering down reform. 4. You can’t ascribe intent to people like Taibbi without proof. But, the Obama Administration never wanted wholesale reform of the Paul Volcker sort and the reform they do seek gives more power to the Fed and executive branch. The way the bailouts were conducted demonstrates a pro-Wall Street bias. And the argument that the President doesn’t have control is weak. His party has control of both houses of Congress and he has the bully pulpit. No one has had a more favourable situation for reform in the last 60 years than Obama (including Reagan and LBJ). It’s a cop-out to complain about Congress. Lastly, reform is not a progressive issue. Look at Ron Paul.

• Super-massive black holes observed at the center of galaxies
• Public Policy Polling: Appoint the most viable candidate
• Historical precedent for Obama’s Oslo speech – James Fallows
• Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com – The strange consensus on Obama’s Nobel address
• Charlie Cook – National Journal Magazine – Real Slippage In Obama’s Approval

Distraction of the Day: Britain’s dumbest criminals

(video embedded above)