Category Archives: Ethics

What’s Wrong With a Welfare Nation?

Posted on January 31, 2012 by

At The Atlantic, a post by Alex Tabarrok, “The Innovation Nation vs. the Warfare-Welfare State“, has been making its way around the bloggysphere, in part due to the big shout out to science, as embodied by this figure: Tabarrok: We … Continue reading →

Posted in Basic Human Decency, Conservatives, Ethics, Funding, Healthcare, Public Health, Social Security | 2 Comments

A Pre-Yom Kippur Meditation

Posted on October 7, 2011 by

Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, begins tonight. If you’re fasting, have a safe and easy fast. Tomorrow, in every synagogue around the world, this will be read, as it is every year, about the nature of a true … Continue reading →

Posted in Basic Human Decency, Ethics, Jewish Stuff | 1 Comment

Nice Bond Rating You Have There, It Would Be a Shame If Something Happened to It: S&P Innoculates Itself Against Fraud Charges

Posted on August 8, 2011 by

Bullying the SEC and defrauding the states. Just another day’s work.
Continue reading →

Posted in Bidness, Big Shitpile, Ethics, The Rule of Law | 26 Comments

Devil Take the Hindmost As Public Policy: What Deficit Reduction Really Looks Like

Posted on July 7, 2011 by

Budget cuts always hit the neediest first and hardest. Besides, they’re just crazy people.
Continue reading →

Posted in Basic Human Decency, Ethics, Public Health | 5 Comments

CEO Pay and the Moral Decline of Economic Elites

Posted on June 21, 2011 by

We are ruled by greedy sociopaths.
Continue reading →

Posted in Bidness, Ethics | 7 Comments

Sunday Sermon: The Canard of Insolvency and the Bankruptcy of Leadership

Posted on June 19, 2011 by

“Leadership is about knowing where to use the power that comes with the currency monopoly to advance the welfare of the nation.”
Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Ethics | 15 Comments

Peer Review Is an Awful System, but It’s Better Than All of the Other Awful Systems: The McKinsey ACA Report Edition

Posted on June 12, 2011 by

There are all sorts of problems with federally-funded research and peer review. But the McKinsey scandal should put things in proper perspective.
Continue reading →

Posted in Bidness, Ethics, Publishing

More on IKEA: Mistaking What Is Legal with What Is Ethical

Posted on April 24, 2011 by

IKEA’s behavior is legal, but not ethical.
Continue reading →

Posted in Bidness, Ethics | 13 Comments

Academic Choice Theory and the Corruption of Economics

Posted on April 13, 2011 by

“…we were modeling both economic and political actors as self-interested utility-maximizing agents, while continuing to see economics professors as idealistic pursuers of truth. I decided to correct this oversight…”
Continue reading →

Posted in Bidness, Economics, Ethics, Humor | 4 Comments

The Heartless Cruelty of Movement Conservatism: Devil Take the Hindmost As Public Policy

Posted on April 7, 2011 by

Just how lost and damned does one have to be to cut aid to someone who has cerebral palsy?
Continue reading →

Posted in Basic Human Decency, Conservatives, Ethics | 10 Comments