Divided we live: Political, economic, racial polarization in Milwaukee metro
One concept from graduate school (political science) that has stuck with me is the benefit of cross-cutting cleavages, which has nothing to do with “wardrobe malfunctions.” (See Wikipedia for an explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-cutting_cleavage.) The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, however, has produced an analysis of its readership area, showing that there are plenty of “reinforcing cleavages,” or as we might call it outside of academic journals, polarization. Republicans and Democrats […]
Leftist leanings in academia: Yet another chapter
It’s fine if people in a particular profession lean this way or that in their political views. There’s nothing particularly appealing about an ideological quota, after all. Sometimes, the leanings are simply driven by logic. I would not expect that people who believe that the use of fossil fuels is a moral assault on Gaia or future generations of humans, for example, to rush into […]
Switching from DC to DB after turning down repeated opportunities
A county commissioner in Hennepin County, Minnesota, has been given plenty of chances to switch from a defined contribution retirement plan to a defined benefit one. He’s refused the chances each time. Now he wants to switch. The Legislature appears to be crafting legislation to let him do that. Is this any way to operate an employee benefits policy? Given the unrealistic expectations that Minnesota […]
Google follows Microsoft to Washington
A group of nerds get together to start a company. They become wildly successful by focusing on their business. Then they go political. Stop me if you’ve heard this story before. Oh wait. You have. In the 1990s, there was Microsoft, which had a tiny presence in Washington DC, until its competitors egged on the US Department of Justice to pursuit anti-trust actions against the […]
Less bureaucracy, lower costs: Imagine that
The world of health care finance is one giant Rube Goldberg machine, with any number of third parties involved. Through Medicare, the U.S. government is the dominant player in setting prices for thousands of medical treatments. Corporate plans and private insurance companies add themselves into the mix, and of course the Affordable Care Care (ObamaCare) adds even more moving parts. But there’s a small movement […]
The war on e-cigs
So-called e-cigarettes, or e-cigs, are a curious product. They are called cigarettes, but they don’t contain tobacco, and people who use them don’t set anything on fire–except perhaps the desire of neo-prohibitionists to regulate them as if they were cigarettes. Have they been proven completely safe? No. But then again, we know that real cigarettes are harmful. If e-cigs, or electronic nicotine delivery systems as […]
Federal money encourages overly ambitious park project
“Free” federal money always has costs. In the case of some families in Dakota County, Minnesota, it could cost them their property. They own land that is surrounded by a park that the county has been assembling for a while, along the Mississippi River. Spurred by the lure of an offer of funds from the federal government (an offer that will expire soon), the county wants […]