Joe Scarborough, a former congressman and currently a co-host for the show Morning Joe on MSNBC, had Paul Krugman on his show the other day (you can view the clip in its entirety here). In the segment, Krugman gave what amounts to a standard Keynesian view of the global economic crisis–spending cuts damage growth, the stimulus package was insufficiently large, debt and deficits should be tackled only once growth has been restored, and so on. For those of us who check in with Krugman on his blog, they amount to the key set of Keynesian insights Krugman chooses to highlight. What is much more interesting is the opinion piece Scarborough wrote afterwards, in which he demonstrates that, like Jon Stewart, he is not an economist.
American Immigration Reform?
An interesting new bipartisan proposal for immigration reform in the United States is out. What’s in it, and is it any good? Let’s have a look.
The State of American Racism
As black history month approaches, the question occurs to me–what’s going on with racism in the states these days? Paul Krugman drew my attention to a Gallup poll that seems to indicate that things are headed in a positive direction, and it got me thinking.
David Cameron’s EU Referendum
British Prime Minister David Cameron has pledged to hold an in-out referendum on British membership of the European Union by 2017. This is a very bad idea. Here’s why.
The Ethical Standing of Animals
Over the last couple of weeks I have found myself engaged three times in discussions about the ethical standing of the animal. In the first instance, the question was one of vegetarianism, the second was one of animal testing, and the third was of the validity of antihumanism, specifically the notion that human beings should diminish both in number and in environmental impact for the benefit of animals. It seems that the animal liberation movement grows stronger and more politically relevant, so it is time to evaluate its central proposition–that animals are non-human persons with the same ethical standing to that of human beings. To answer this question, we must investigate what precisely it means to be a person.
Benjamin Studebaker 