Author Archive | Todd Zywicki

An article in today’s Washington Post raises the question of whether Ricky Williams of the Miami Dolphins will file bankruptcy. Under current law the answer is probably yest. Williams, for non-sports fans, was a star running back for the Miami Dolphins who suddenly retired before the beginning of this season, saying that he doesn’t want […]

Congratulations to Governor Arnold for vetoing a counterproductive piece of legislation in California that would have imposed new disclosure requirements on pharmaceutical benefits managers. As the FTC noted in an analysis of the bill (from the press release): The staff analysis finds that AB 1960 is likely to have an adverse effect on consumers in […]

The working paper of my article “An Economic Analysis of the Consumer Bankruptcy Crisis” is now available on-line through SSRN, and it currently remains under submission and consideration by law reviews. Given the tidal wave of consumer bankruptcies in recent years, the time is ripe for a reconsideration of the prevailing model of consumer bankruptcy. […]

A David Broder column in today’s Washington Post mourns the decline of journalistic standards and emphasis on accuracy in the modern media business. Given Broder’s track record of sloppiness and bending the truth to score his own political points, however, his complaints seem somewhat misplaced. Broder writes today: Time was when any outfit such as […]

In the spirit of debate (and further data), I post a spirited riposte that I received from Jeremy Bloom of “It is Written” on Jim Lingren’s comments (which I passed along earlier): But there’s a fallacy here. Do we really care what the average education level is? Of course not – it’s no more relevant […]

Jim Lindgren writes in with this comment and question on the article I referenced yesterday, which contained the priceless assertion by a Princeton University Professor that he is not surprised that most “smart people” support Kerry. Jim comments: Actually, it should be far from obvious that smart people would so overwhelmingly support Kerry, since Republicans […]

The words of Princeton computer science professor Andrew Appel, in an article in the Daily Princetonian regarding the heavy pro-Kerry tilt in giving by Princeton faculty and employees. The sole donor to the Bush campaign isn’t even a professor, but an employee of the government relations office. Perhaps even more astounding, donations to “Other” (Nader, […]

Now here’s a hoax involving Clinton Portis that I and many other fantasy footballers really care about.

Art Blakey, Get the Message. With Chuck Mangione, Keith Jarrett, Reggie Workman, and Frank Mitchell. Eclectic, unusual group for Blakey, most interesting to me for hearing Chuck Mangione (of all people) jam in a hard-bop context (quite different from his later performances at the Mega-Lo-Mart). His sound remains very distinctive here. Somewhat obscure disc, but […]

Interesting observations by several members of Commons Blog on what they perceive as an increasing politicization and activism at National Geographic and National Geographic Magazine. I don’t subscribe to National Geographic so can’t say one way or the other, but it did prompt me to recall that I used to be a member of the […]

The Real Times has a front-page story on the Democrats regrouping after the Republican National Convention. Noting the President’s double-digit poll leads, the Democrats argue that Kerry was not fast and aggressive enough in his response to the Swift Boat ads and controversy and this led to the fall in the polls. This could be […]

Interesting article in today’s Washington Post on the medical malpractice insurance crisis. It is one of the more in-depth news analyses I have seen on the whole issue. I am especially intrigued by a chart that accompanies it that shows the median settlements and jury verdicts in malpractice cases. Unfortunately, it appears that the on-line […]

A recently received email: “At this point I swear I will pay solid money in small bills to make the wine wars stop. Signed, A Fan” For all of you out there, I’ve pretty much finished up on the wine wars posts and I apologize if I bothered you with tedium. I decided to put […]

Justice O’Connor’s error here is quite profound. It is clear that she has simply failed to grasp the context within which the 21st Amendment was enacted. She has completely ignored that the 21st Amendment was enacted to effectuate the repeal of the 18th Amendment. The problem the 21st Amendment sought to address, therefore, was that […]

Justice O’Connor cites a litany of other Senators who she believes support her interpretation. Rather than beating a dead horse still further I will just offer a brief comment on each of these. “Still others emphasized the plenary power granted the States by § 2. Senator Walsh, a member of the Subcommittee that had held […]