Author Archive | Todd Zywicki

Interesting discussion by Ribstein, Bainbridge, and Hurt on the MCI-Verizon-Qwest merger dance. I’m with Ribstein on this one–show me the money: To echo my prior thoughts on this deal (see my post linked above, and link back to earlier posts) this doesn’t make sense for MCI shareholders. What they want is the best price they […]

John Luik, “Only the Plump Die Young?”

Will they be asking for a refund?

One implication of the ideological imbalance of the modern academy is that students who are interested in classical liberal, libertarian, or conservative ideas must look outside their university for education. I was pleased to see that the Institute for Humane Studies at GMU is in the process of rolling out a series of “Independent Study […]

Nice column in the Baltimore Sun today praising the great bloggers in the GMU Econ Department, including Cafe Hayek and Marginal Revolution.

I was driving to work today and heard the great old song “Dancin’ in the Moonlight” by the band King Harvest (had to look that up on the Internet). Which got me to thinking–what are the 10 best songs by relatively obscure bands? I’m looking for the tunes that have slipped through the cracks in […]

I’ve been checking out this blog off-and-on for awhile now, and it has some useful and interesting stuff on credit industry issues. Here’s a nice post by Jeff Michael on whether filing for bankruptcy will be that much “harder” for most filers after reform, and a useful warning about the inevitable funny numbers that will […]

Excellent Editorial earlier this week in Investor’s Business Daily, “Tossing Our Cookies” ($) nails the obesity issue: Nutrition: The recent announcement by PBS that Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster will be a spokespuppet for healthy eating ignores the fact that obesity is caused by what children eat and not by what they watch. No one recalls […]

Some interesting exchanges between Dartmouth and FIRE regarding Dartmouth’s now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t speech code. See Dartmouth: the Spin Unravels and Dartmouth: Still Mysterious.

Vote here. (Hat Tip Joe Malchow). I was surprised at who appears to be the Condorcet winner. Update: When I first posted this, George Allen was beating Rudy, and Rudy was beating the others, which I found surprising. Looks like the tide has definitely turned against my fellow UVA lawyer in subsequent voting, however.

Geroge H. Nash’s book, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 is a book that has long been on my reading list and I finally got around to reading it over the past few weeks. It is a really comprehensive and insightful analysis of the development of modern conservatism and libertarianism. In particular, Nash’s […]

Bizzyblog reports that my pointer to the FY 2004 Census Numbers for state median incomes is too simple.

Tom Blumer at Bizzyblog has a roundup of all of his commentary (and future commentary) on the Bankruptcy Reform Legislation, mostly from a critical perspective. Tom has been posting a lot on this issue, and unfortunately because of my other commitments, I was unable to respond on much of it. For those looking for coherent […]

Here’s a very simple puzzle that I don’t get about the filibuster question. Leave aside the constitutional questions and particularities of procedures to change internal rules. As I understand it, the justification for the use of the filibuster in the Senate (contra the House) is that the Senate is a deliberative body, and that the […]

The means-testing provisions of the bankruptcy reform bill only apply to those who make above the state median income, adjusted for family size. For those interested in the list of state median incomes is listed here. In the area where I live, for Virginia, the median income for a family of four is $69,616, in […]