Latest Episode:
“AFD 64 – The Role of Finance”
Posted: Tues, 19 November 2013
Bill asks what role the financial services sector should have in the U.S. economy. Sarah talks with Bill about Oklahoma’s abortion restrictions which the Supreme Court blocked. Then Bill assesses the UN Congo mission.
Additional:
I wrote this item in The Globalist after recording the finance segment, to expand upon a point I briefly passed over in the show.
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From BBC Africa: Cameroon ‘repels CAR gun attack’…
Cameroon’s army has repelled a cross-border raid by gunmen from the Central African Republic (CAR), killing six of the attackers and capturing one of them, the defence ministry says.
A soldier and a villager were also killed in the clashes on Saturday, it said.
What this headline and blurb don’t say is that the total number of attackers was estimated to be four hundred. It’s believed the rebel group crossed the border in an effort to free their captured leader, who had previously been arrested by the government in Cameroon because he was trying to destabilize the Central African Republic from within their territory.
Basically, Cameroon doesn’t even have time for your mess, CAR.
My latest op-ed from The Globalist:
In the 1980s, the supply-siders became ascendant in Washington D.C., preaching voodoo economics as “the way, the truth and the life.” Their central claim was that rich people create jobs, while high taxes on the rich leave them with less money to create jobs. Therefore tax cuts for the rich equal job growth.
In reality, this hasn’t borne out. Neither the macroeconomic data nor academic studies have shown much evidence of a direct correlation between rich people having more money and using it to create jobs.
Instead, they mostly just use it to speculate, because it’s essentially extra wealth well above and beyond any other spending or genuine investments they could possibly conceive of.
Read the full op-ed here.
New NSA/Five Eyes-related revelations in the Guardian: “Australia tried to monitor Indonesian president’s phone”
I’m not really surprised to find out the Australian government was spying on senior leadership in Indonesia. I think I’d be more surprised to learn they were definitely NOT.
That being said, the new jackass Prime Minister had a pretty weak response, besides incorrectly (see below) brushing it off as the work of the other party from whom he just took power. The government’s primary excuse? Australia’s activities were not so much “spying” as “research” [and] “We use the information that we gather for good, including to build a stronger relationship with Indonesia.”
Oh ok then. So you just needed to hack phones to find out their pets’ names or … what?
I really enjoy this “research” for better relations excuse. I mean, it’s seriously like saying Australia was just trying to Facebook-creep on Indonesia to see if Indonesia was “in a relationship” with anybody.
And about the claim that this is all the other party’s fault? The docs show the spying on Indonesia actually started the very day the previous PM from his party left office, meaning their own party would have been in office when it was planned, even if Labor technically had taken office by the time it began.
Tough to assess, but there’s a big reason to be skeptical of the progress they can make. The math.
With the stepped-up and increasingly militarized United Nations peacekeeping operation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, launched earlier this year, there are now 19,000 UN troops on the ground. That still only works out to per capita coverage of about 47 square miles per soldier. For comparison, the U.S. alone brought 148,000 troops in 2003 to invade Iraq, a nation less than one fifth the size of the DRC. It’s unclear how many troops the DRC government has under its command at any given point, but on the low end they only have 144k troops, most of which aren’t particularly useful or competent at securing the peace.
Latest Episode:
“AFD 63 – Humanitarian Aid, Keystone, Guns”
Posted: Wed, 13 November 2013
Guest expert Abby Stoddard from Humanitarian Outcomes joins Bill to discuss a new report on violence against humanitarian aid workers. Then Bill looks at problems on the Keystone pipelines. Finally, why can’t we even have a debate on guns?
Additional links:
–http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-24764316
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Latest Episode:
“AFD 62 – Role of Government”
Posted: Wed, 06 November 2013
Sasha discusses the Kentucky Health Insurance Exchange. Then Bill assesses the progress of implementing the rest of the exchange and discusses the role of government in 21st century America.
Additional links:
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