A Stitch in Haste

The Vice President visits a window factory.

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The Times' "Ethicist" channels George Costanza.

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Thomas Friedman:
Landing at Kennedy Airport from Hong Kong was, as I've argued before, like going from the Jetsons to the Flintstones. The ugly, low-ceilinged arrival hall was cramped, and using a luggage cart cost $3. (Couldn't we at least supply foreign visitors with a free luggage cart, like other major airports in the world?) As [...]

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Holiday air travel + weather delays = yearning for the "good ol' days" —
I know the days are gone when attendants could be written up if we did not put the linen napkins with the T.W.A. logo embossed on them in the lower righthand corner of the first-class diners' trays. As are the days [...]

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New York Times columnist Adam Cohen:
Mass layoffs produce big winners and losers. Most workers who remain are financially unscathed, even though their employer is struggling. Wages are actually expected to increase 3.5 percent in 2009. Those laid off are left with no salary and, because the job market is so brutal, risk losing their homes [...]

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To review: There was a flash in the blogospheric pan a few months ago over a controversial book called Nudge, the authors of which (a law professor and an economics professor, both of some renown) insisted that "libertarian paternalism" is not an axiomatic oxymoron. I, along with almost every other libertarian commentator, was skeptical.
Through sheer [...]

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Barney Frank calls for making Wall Street bonuses illegal:
"There should be a moratorium on bonuses," Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, told reporters yesterday in Washington. "They have a negative incentive effect because they are the ones that say if you take a risk and it pays off you get a big bonus," and if it causes [...]

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Despite the rain and wind from the remnants of Tropical Storm Hannah, my flight from Puerto Rico arrived a good 10-15 minutes early Saturday evening.
Apparently I'm one of the lucky ones:
A third of U.S. flights travel through New York airspace, and flight cancellations and delays at area airports account for three-quarters of significant delays at [...]

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I was only semi-seriously skimming a blogpost about the purported "costs" of privatization when I stumbled upon this tidbit:
The privatization process also laid waste to jobs that, while low paid, provided good benefits, civil service protection, union representation, and self-respect. Those lost jobs represent costs, personal and public, tangible and intangible.
This gobbledygook mirrors the one [...]

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When you hear the term "price gouging," you normally think of things like milk, batteries, flashlights, shovels, gasoline…
…and pizza?
"Pizzaioli" or pizza chefs in Naples, birthplace of the Margherita, handed out free pizzas on Wednesday in protest at high prices charged by rivals who, they say, use the spike in commodity prices to rip off consumers.
…
The [...]

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