Governor Corbett’s participation in “The New Voices” platform of Philly.com’s notable contributors will be available in the form of photo essays, videos and columns, highlighting the Governor’s perspective in addressing state issues of importance to Philadelphians.
"Philadelphians will be excited to receive the latest policy news from Harrisburg, directly from their Governor,” said Robert J. Hall, Chief Executive Officer and Publisher, Interstate General Media, parent company of Philly.com. “Governor Corbett’s contributions to Philly.com will not only deliver answers and insight to the latest political news in the Keystone State, but our readers will also become acquainted with the Governor through interesting essays and photos, providing a unique perspective of governing at the State Capitol.”
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Make, Announce, Type
Innovations in local journalism.
Time To Rethink Statutory Rape (And Related) Laws
It's a difficult issue, but cases like this highlight why they're problematic. I think there's a valid role for the state in some way to place a barrier between these relationships, but not necessarily with a life-destroying sex offender charge.
Ages of consent have been ratcheted up in recent decades, as has hysteria about all teen sex generally. Maybe 18-year-olds shouldn't be having sex with 14 and 15 year olds, but they sure were when I was in high school. It's one thing to try to prevent these relationships, quite another to destroy lives over it. Put people in this range of ages together in a building 5 days a week and these types of relationships are to be expected.
It's a complicated issue. I don't know what the perfect answer is.
Ages of consent have been ratcheted up in recent decades, as has hysteria about all teen sex generally. Maybe 18-year-olds shouldn't be having sex with 14 and 15 year olds, but they sure were when I was in high school. It's one thing to try to prevent these relationships, quite another to destroy lives over it. Put people in this range of ages together in a building 5 days a week and these types of relationships are to be expected.
It's a complicated issue. I don't know what the perfect answer is.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Rusty's World
I have no opinion about Lois Lerner, but it's, uh, interesting where Rusty's brain goes...
Paging All Real Economists
Above my skill level at the moment, so I'm curious if there's been any "serious" work on the distributional impacts of the Fed's quantitative easing.
Whatever it's done for the economy overall, what has it done for rich people?
Whatever it's done for the economy overall, what has it done for rich people?
Not Too Late For The Helicopters
A big tragedy of the last few years is the failure to recognize that being in a low inflation world at the zero lower bound was a tremendous opportunity to massively enhance human welfare in this country. Mailing out 10 grand checks to everyone would have been an egalitarian massive boost to the economic well-being of huge numbers of people. Instead, the Fed has goosed asset prices, mostly benefiting the rich. Trickle down through another means, but still trickle down. Better than doing nothing, probably, but there were other ways.
KISS
Good public policy is usually simple. Simple policy is not only easier to administer, but it's also more difficult to subvert. Consider a public option versus Obamacare.
Or an open securities exchange vs Dodd-Frank.
Democrats have become the victims of their own pusillanimity on these issues. The main Wall Street argument against these new rules is that they're excessive and onerously complicated. But they're only complicated because the Democrats didn't have the stones in the original Dodd-Frank debate to insist on simple concepts like putting all trades on open exchanges.
Instead, they built a system based upon a series of fiendishly complicated compromises. They keep adding more and more fine print to the infrastructural rules for things like Swap Execution Facilities and deriviatives clearing, and the more fine print there is, the more cracks and crevices Wall Street's lawyers can find to slither through.
"Pusillanimity" is an uncharacteristically generous bit of Taibbi mind-reading.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
These People Don't Exist
The fantasy behind places like Revel is that there are people who have stupid amounts of money to spend, and that those people will choose to spend it at an Atlantic City casino. More than that, there are not so many of those people that you can fill a 47 story hotel/resort with them regularly.
Our economy doesn't produce those people. Not anymore, at least.
Our economy doesn't produce those people. Not anymore, at least.
Dreaming Of The Glory Days
Bring the band back together.
They learned nothing.
The president should announce that he has told the Justice Department to appoint an independent investigator with bulldog instincts and bipartisan credibility. The list of candidates could start with Kenneth Starr, who chased down the scandals, real and imagined, of the Clinton presidency.
They learned nothing.
The State Department Is Run By Lizard People
The real issue here is that the staffers are a wee bit less cazy than the Reps.
The House GOP (and Senate, mostly) don't listen to the crazy base, they are the crazy base.
The House GOP (and Senate, mostly) don't listen to the crazy base, they are the crazy base.
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