Diggapedia

1)       Will lactose intolerant people be as indifferent to the milk cliff as nonsmokers are to increased tobacco taxes? 2)       Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his Likud party are seeing its January 22 nd election popularity waning at the expense of his former aide Naftali Bennett and the rightist Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home) party.   The 40 year old son of American immigrants, Bennett has called for unconstrained settlement expansion while opposing the creation of a Palestinian state.   Since Netanyahu will not have a majority, he will have to choose between a hard right wing coalition or the mish mash of center left parties to form a government.   The stakes are high and could set the peace process back 20 years.   Sadly, I see Netanyahu choosing his former aide, putting the Israeli government at odds with its patron in Washington.   What is even more disappointing is the clear shift in the Israeli ...

Economists suck at predictions.   Economist Kevin Hassett, and former Romney economic advisor, said in 1999 “Stocks are now, we believe, in the midst of a one-time-only rise to much higher ground—to the neighborhood of 36,000.” Of course there was President Obama’s own Christine Romer who predicted that unemployment would never pass 8% if the stimulus was passed.   We know how that turned out.   How many economists predicted the 2008 economic collapse?   I can only think of one: Nouriel “Dr. Doom” Roubini.   Roubini now warns of a perfect storm recession in 2013:   “Everybody’s kicking the can down the road of too much public and private debt. The can is becoming heavier and heavier, and bigger on debt, and all these problems may come to a head by 2013 at the latest.”    Meanwhile Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman says “ So yes, debt matters. But right now, other things matter more. We need more, not less, government spending to get us out of our un...