Politics, Law & Economics Blog ← Ideas about law, politics, economics, and science policy in America.

Peter Thiel on the Role of Technology and Globalization in Our Economy

Mar

2013

Peter Thiel tends to be best known as an investor and entrepreneur. He is a co-founder of PayPal and the first investor in Facebook, both of which have made him wealthy and well-known. I tend to be more interested in Peter Thiel for his regular and careful analysis of economic and technology trends. Though Thiel ...

From DealBook: Tech-Wary Buffett Shies Away From Facebook

Jul

2011

While investors are salivating over the Web’s hottest start-ups, Warren E. Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway, long reticent of technology companies, has no plans to take the plunge into the social networking space. “It’s not my game,” he said in an interview with DealBook at the Allen & Company conference here. “The world is changing, and ...

10 Steps to Risk-Proofing our Economy

Apr

2009

Nassim Taleb’s Financial Times op-ed recommends 10 fixes to our economy Last week in the Financial Times, Nassim Taleb published an op-ed entitled, “Ten principles for a Black Swan-proof world.” In it, Taleb lays out a number of major economic reforms we could make to limit the likelihood of catastrophic risk in the future (expanded ...

Why is Science Important?

Mar

2009

Great new video explores the importance of understanding science Check out this terrific 28-minute video by British science teacher Alom Shaha, the creator of the crowd-sourced site “Why is Science Important?“:

Important Self-Defense Lessons for the Women in Your Life

Mar

2009

My good friend, Al Horner, was profiled in Kare 11’s television news on Monday night. Al is a former Navy SEAL, a self-defense instructor, and recently authored the book “Not Me“. With the release of the book, some of the TV station’s female anchors took his self-defense training. Take a few minutes and watch the ...

How Close Are We to an Economic Depression?

Mar

2009

Are we on the verge of a Second Great Depression? There has been a lot of whispering lately that our current economic crisis may be leading to another Great Depression. On Tuesday, the ultra-liberal Nation magazine proposed that we might already be in the midst of the Second Great Depression. Though there is no universally-agreed-upon ...

Forget Iraq: Prepare for a “Space War”?

Feb

2009

Does Recent Satellite Collision Foreshadow Future Space Destruction? You probably heard about the satellite collision two weeks ago, when a US communications and defense satellite was struck by a defunct Russian satellite. The collision involved an amazing amount of force (two 700lb. objects, traveling towards each other at over 13,000 mph, apparently creates the impact ...

Will Banks Be Nationalized This Weekend?

Feb

2009

Calls for Bank Nationalization Are Increasing This week both Senate Banking Chairman Christopher Dodd and former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan indicated that some form of federal bank takeover may be necessary in the near future. I wrote a few weeks ago that nationalization may be one important way to create accountability and stability in ...

Why Don’t We Hold “Experts” Accountable?

Feb

2009

When Media “Experts” Assist in Ruining Our Economy, Why Aren’t They Fired? Yesterday I wrote about a depressing appearance by Nouriel Roubini and Nassim Taleb on CNBC, where the show’s hosts were demonstrably incapable of engaging in a serious discussion about the structural problems in our economy. A few days ago, I also wrote about ...

Don’t Believe (All) the Hype About the Stimulus Plan

Feb

2009

Nancy Pelosi Wants You to Think This Is the Current State of American Unemployment Last Friday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a graph showing the number of unemployed Americans from each of the last three recessions: “This chart compares the job loss so far in this recession to job losses in the 1990-1991 recession and the ...