In the ever-changing Preakness of crises facing the nation, the looming pension crisis has moved up a few lengths for the Free Agent, thanks to Roger Lowenstein’s excellent While America Aged. Subtitled How Pension Debts Ruined General Motors, Stopped the NYC Subways, Bankrupted San Diego, and Loom as the Next Financial Crisis, the book lucidly […]
Crisis du Tomorrow-jour Read More »
The Free Agent has a cold. Normally, she just lets her iron constitution deal with such peripheral matters, but her friend Nude Eel recommended Sudafed, thus putting the FA on the path to federal prison. Well, actually, it was Mister Eel who endangered himself, because the FA didn’t have any government-issued identification on her and
The Free Agent Has a Cold Read More »
The Free Agent has continued to think about the Bingham Canyon mine after last week’s post. As the mountain has come down, what has been built up is literally invaluable—knowledge. In 2005, the value of once-nuisance molybdenum exceeded the value of the ever-useful copper. As geologic knowledge and mine technology has increased, Kennecott is able
A New Yorker can be one of four places in America: home, at the beach, in L.A. or out of town. The Free Agent has been out of town. Specifically, she has been in Salt Lake City. As her sister-in-law observed, “These are the most industrious people I’ve ever seen. We’ve got full-time students with
A Free Agent Abroad Read More »
We’ve known for some time now that anyone can win a Nobel Prize, but Paul Krugman seems unfit for a Cable Ace. (The Free Agent has been drafting an intellectual enemies list, and Doktor Krugman is battling the woman he calls “arguably the greatest Speaker ever”, Nancy Pelosi, for the top spot.) This week, he
NY Times vs The Free Agent, part Deux Read More »
…about our spending. The Free Agent’s eyes glaze over when budget talk gets into trillions and hundreds of billions of dollars, but as the responsible adult she is, she has an iron-clad grasp of her own household spending. Let us now gather round our national dining room table and evaluate this year’s federal spending in
Honey, We Need to Talk Read More »
Following up, no doubt, on The Free Agent’s recent rumination on bond rating services, the New York Times posted an editorial yesterday on the same subject. Unsurprisingly, it ignores the crucial role played by the SEC in giving the agencies a false varnish of objectivity, and—insert exhausted sigh—recommends as a solution, more government control, even
The New York Times v. The Free Agent Read More »
Is The Free Agent the only one who heard President Obama channeling Edward G. Robinson at his speech at Cooper Union last week? ‘Listen here, you mugs,’ she paraphrases, ‘You’re gonna get in line, see? You’re gonna play by the rules, and guess who’s gonna be making the rules?” Underlying the current reform fad is
“Little Caesar” Obama Read More »
With mixed signals at best for a truce in the war on drugs, The Free Agent modestly proposes an interim solution, aimed at minimizing the pathologies innocent bystanders—hereafter referred to as squares—suffer. Until you can do so legally, the FA suggests to pushers of the world, incorporate. When a drug dealer is arrested, his turf,
Drug Dealers of the World, Incorporate Read More »
The Free Agent conveyed her surprise to a friend the other day—the federal government’s economic indicators—corporate profits, GDP, net investment—all point to an economy catching a trade wind, finally, out of the doldrums. This seemed to contradict lots of her experience, stubbornly-high unemployment (even allowing for employment to be what economists call “sticky”, employers believed
If it Quacks Like a Recovery? Read More »