A History of Bailouts

Reading about the legacy of Reagan, I was surprised by the size if the Savings & Loan bailout: Dallek places the amount at $500 billion. I decided to look into the number. Wikipedia, my first source, claims the bailout involved $125 billion in government assistance. Delving deeper, Propublica has a fantastic History of U.S. Government Bailouts. Propublica states that, adjusted to inflation, S&L Bailout cost $293.3 Billion (in 2008 US dollars).

EU: Airline Regulator

According to blogger Clive Irving, you should be paying more attention to the European Union when deciding which airline to fly in light of the recent spell of air accidents.

"The European Union has the toughest screening process of airlines in the world: More than 160 are on its current black list, meaning that they are not allowed to fly into or out of EU countries."

Notably absent from his post is any mention of the Air France disaster, the largest plane crash in 2009 in terms of fatalities. I'm reasonably certain that Air France is not blacklisted by the European Union.

Twitter

I am now on Twitter. I'm not sure why and I'm not sure if it will be interesting, but if anyone has suggestions of people to follow I think that's the only way to make it a worthy investment of my time! Let me know who you follow. 

Not a Twitter Revolution...

But something better! I enjoyed this perspective on the goings-on in Iran in recent weeks. This was certainly not the point of the article, but it was my favorite line:

"I didn’t meet any Iranians calling for U.S. intervention; that’s strictly a debate inside the Washington beltway."

I feel that my role as an American is to simply watch this conflict unfold. I don't think we can do anything to equalize the playing field in Iranian politics - this is an unfortunate fact but a fact nonetheless. There's nothing we should do but watch, though you can count on Interventionist America to do much more. 

Top Ten Percent

The May 2009 RePEc data is out, showing that George Mason is among the top 10% of Economics institutions in the world. My school ranks 85th, just behind the government of France. I'm not sure how to feel about this.

Reagan's Legacy

Okay, I know I have put up waaaaay too much content today, but I continue to read interesting things. Here is an article on the legacy of Ronald Reagan that touches on the current crisis tracing its origins to his policies, George W Bush (who is clearly disliked by nearly everyone) being largely a disciple of Reagan (who is loved), and Barack Obama being nowhere near RR, despite some comparisons to the contrary.

I spent the morning railing on FDR - not the first time I've done that - but this article paints Reagan in that same light... an overrated President who is wildly popular even though his policies largely hurt the average American. I'm not sure where he belongs, but this article suggests in 20 more years, if we can get through the aftermath of the Bush years, we'll see Reaganomics get a scholarly treatment akin to the Keynesian ideas of the 1930s.

How to Fix the Auto Industry

I'll give you a hint: don't ask GM to do the heavy lifting and build an electric car. Don't assume Fiat will simply become popular in America this time around. The second article has the answer:

“In Europe, the high cost of fuel pushes consumers to buy fuel-efficient vehicles,” Close said. “In the U.S., it’s the government trying to convince people this is the sort of technology they need. The big question is whether they will succeed.”

The government can force people to like small cars by making it prohibitively expensive to own big ones. Why do we waste our time with subsidies and fuel standards? Unreal.