Last week I blogged about a very interesting article in the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal by Claremont Review of Books contributing editor William Voegeli titled “The Big-Spending, High-Taxing, Lousy Services Paradigm” (Autumn 2009). It compared the tax-services models of California and Texas. VC commenters were spirited as ever and raised a number of important questions. Although […]
Author Archive | Kenneth Anderson
Private Equity Law Textbook? Desperately Seeking …
I’m late ordering books for my spring class on private equity and venture capital, and am desperately trying to figure out if there might finally be a law school text on this topic. The constraints are the following…. below the fold. (ps. The advice folks gave me on my earlier question re law and econ […]
UN Budgets and Follow the Money
The New York Times reports on budget season at the UN and various battles hotting up. It’s a good piece by Neil MacFarquhar, dated November 7, 2009. As the article says, that fact that it costs the United Nations an average of $2,473 per page to create every single document in its six official languages, while […]
MarineTraffic.com Is Also Really Cool
I’m sure many people saw this over at Instapundit, and maybe it’s not as cool as Sketch2 below, but I spent a while messing with this today and thought it was fascinating … MarineTraffic.com, with a live GoogleEarth map of marine shipping worldwide.
California Withholding Tax Hike – Can Someone Explain the Legal Basis to Me?
I started out legal life in California, clerking for the California Supreme Court and, already being a tax geek, was handed many of the state tax issues. So I have some familiarity with California’s tax law. It is complicated and in many policy aspects problematic, but also, to be clear as a lawyer, it is […]
Law and Robotics Panel at Stanford Law School
By Kenneth Anderson on November 6, 2009 11:15 am in Academia, California, International Human Rights Law, International Law, Robotics, War and Armed Conflict
If you are going to be around Palo Alto next Thursday evening, you might consider attending a panel discussion on robotics and law at Stanford Law School. I’ll be on a panel alongside some very interesting and knowledgeable folks taking up varied aspects of robotics (my particular interest is robotics and war, but the panel […]
Congratulations to Robert Tsai on ‘Eloquence and Reason: Creating a First Amendment Culture’
By Kenneth Anderson on November 6, 2009 10:57 am in Academia, Constitutional History, Constitutional Theory, Freedom of Speech, Language
This is coming more than a little late, as the book has been out for a few months, but I wanted belatedly to congratulate my Washington College of Law colleague, Robert Tsai, on his book Eloquence and Reason: Creating a First Amendment Culture. I have it on my shelf for night reading, but unfortunately even […]
Italy Convicts Twenty-three CIA Agents in Absentia
By Kenneth Anderson on November 4, 2009 8:15 pm in Executive Branch, International Law, War on Terror
Unfortunately, I don’t have time to say anything substantive about this now, but AP reports on the conviction of twenty-three CIA agents in absentia in Italy in a trial over an extraordinary rendition. The AP story is unusually detailed for a wire story and bears reading. I am in the middle of something and can’t […]
The California versus Texas Model, and Public Choice
By Kenneth Anderson on November 2, 2009 9:27 pm in California, Economy, Housing, Politics, Regulation, Voting With Your Feet
William Voegeli, a contributing editor at The Claremont Review of Books, has an excellent essay in Manhattan Journal comparing the economic performance of California and Texas. (I believe a short opinion page version appeared recently in the LAT.) Among other things, the article provides a good example for how a public choice analysis can be […]
The Second Circuit Dismisses Arar Rendition Case, En Banc
By Kenneth Anderson on November 2, 2009 6:42 pm in Counter-Terrorism Policy, International Law, War on Terror
My Opinio Juris colleague Julian Ku comments on the dismissal of the Maher Arar rendition case by the Second Circuit in an en banc decision, 7-4. (Arar is the case of the Canadian who was detained by the US and subjected to extraordinary rendition to Syria.) Like Julian, and perhaps more strongly, I think the […]
Textbook Suggestions for IL Law & Econ Elective?
I’ve been asked to step in and teach a 1L elective course on law and economics this spring, covering for a colleague who has taken a high level economics post in the administration. I have to pick a textbook very soon. The course is for second semester 1Ls, and my goal is to attract 1Ls […]
A New Soros Initiative on the Economics Profession?
By Kenneth Anderson on October 30, 2009 1:49 pm in Academia, Economy, Finance, Financial Crisis, Legal Profession, Legal Professor, Regulation
Michael Hersh describes a new $50 million George Soros initative to try and remake the economics profession so to reclaim it from “free market fundamentalists.” The fund will be run by Robert Johnson, formerly a managing director of Soros Fund Management; it hopes to raise $200 million in matching funds. (H/T Instapundit; also Mark N […]
UN Special Rapporteur Criticizes US Predator Program in UN Speech
By Kenneth Anderson on October 28, 2009 9:15 pm in International Law, Targeted Killing, War on Terror
Reuter’s reports on a speech given by Philip Alston at the UN, criticizing the US for its drone attacks or, at a minimum, for not being forthcoming on its drone attacks. Professor Alston (a friend of mine and well known to many VC professor-readers as an NYU law professor) is the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial […]
Rating Agencies Doing Fine, Thanks
The Lex column in the Financial Times reports that the rating agencies – Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s – are doing financially just fine and, well, even better than fine: McGraw Hill this week showed the ratings business is on the increase … Its Standard & Poor’s credit ratings agency, which accounts for the vast […]
Paul Caron on Drivers of Law School Cost from GAO Report
Paul Caron, at TaxProf, has posted some executive summary parts and the link to a GAO report on drivers of law school cost as well as minority enrollment. Regarding costs of legal education, the GAO summary says: According to law school officials, the move to a more hands-on, resource-intensive approach to legal education and competition […]