Submitted by unsettling economics

The mantra about supporting the troops is like the conservatives concerned about the sanctity of life until after the baby is born. The military opposes improving the GI Bill because it gives soldiers and incentive not to reenlist. Even after a soldier leaves, navigating the system is complicated and the ultimate funding […]

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Submitted by Econbrowser
Why “Project Lifeline” is unlikely to help the mortgage mess.

MarketWatch reports today:
In the latest move aimed at halting a swelling and steady flow of mortgage foreclosures, six of the nation’s largest mortgage lenders bowed to government pressure and joined forces Tuesday to give all homeowners who are seriously delinquent on their loans another […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM

From Intrade, top picks for the 80th Academy Awards, w/odds:

Best Director: Coen Brothers, 71%

Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem, 88%

Best Supporting Actress: Kate Blanchett, 42%

Best Actress: Julie Christie, 62%

Best Actor: Daniel Day Lewis, 87%

Best Picture: No Country for Old Men, 71.3%
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Rating 3.00 out of […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM

From UHaul.com:

One-way truck rental from Newark to Charlotte : $2,116

One-way truck rental from Charlotte to Newark: $311

Reason: New Jersey is one of the top five departure states, and North Carolina is one of the top five destination states (see chart above), and the almost 7:1 ratio in prices suggests that 7 […]

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Submitted by The Capital Spectator
Repricing of risk is, in theory, a fertile time for minting new opportunities for strategic-minded investors. But, of course, there’s a catch: the financial gods always forget to send instructions for making sense of the upheaval. That leaves mere mortals with the task of sifting through the data in the hope […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
According to Dr. David Gratzer of the Manhattan Institute, in 1960 about half of health-care expenditures were directly controlled by consumers. Today, it is about 15%. Over the same period in which consumers have relinquished control, per-capita health-care spending has quintupled and costs have skyrocketed.
~Star Parker in Hillarycare Is Not the Answer
Now […]

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Submitted by Econbrowser
Ignore the newspaper reports about the short term forecasts; that’s old news, since these White House forecasts were made in November (and hence, it’s not fair to compare these forecasts to current forecasts, as has been done in some journalistic accounts). And ignore the chapter on housing markets — there’s not going to […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM

Americans will buy almost 200 million roses for Valentine’s Day, and almost all of them will come from South America, mostly from Colombia.
There is simply no better place to be a rose than in a valley near Bogota, Colombia. Near the equator, the valley gets constant sunlight year round. It is 8,500 […]

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Submitted by A Dash of Insight
At “A Dash” we have been exploring the question of how an intelligent individual investor might gain useful information from the media — both print and broadcast — and from the rich offerings of the Internet.
A main theme of our planned book is that a little knowledge can be a […]

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