Ryan Cooper

Image via Via Atrios, I see that the idea of just printing money and handing it out is gaining some elite traction. Here’s Anatole Kaletsky in Reuters: Last week I discussed in this column the idea that the vast amounts of money created by central banks and distributed for free to banks and bond funds […]

Image via Paul Waldman’s jaw drops at the Romney ad team’s total disregard for the truth: Now, let me be absolutely clear about something. I’ve been paying very, very close attention to political ads for a long time. In my former career as an academic I did a lot of research on political ads. I’ve […]

That’s not to say that there aren’t individually successful hedge fund managers, just that in general hedge funds are a crappy investment whose titanic management fees are in no way justified by their performance. Felix Salmon has the goods: At the beginning of January, Simon Lack published The Hedge Fund Mirage: The Illusion of Big […]

That’s the headline Atrios would have put on this Times piece: A chill is wafting over France’s business class as Mr. Hollande, the country’s first Socialist president since François Mitterrand in the 1980s, presses a manifesto of patriotism to “pay extra tax to get the country back on its feet again.” The 75 percent tax […]

While I catch a quick lunch, here are some choice tidbits from around the web: 1. Conor Friedersdorf tries on calling out political ad lies for what they are, and boy it feels pretty good. Preach, brother! 2. A physicist recounts the increasingly extreme measures the body undergoes to survive above 26,000 feet. 3. “At […]

Tyler Cowen gave me the old what for the other day for calling him a gargoyle: I say focus ruthlessly on substance and do your best to explore and present the limits and drawbacks of your own ideas and recommendations. Years down the road — or sooner — one will end up wiser and better […]

A few pieces from the last few days—first, how corporations are on track to pay record fines this year for fraud: Pharmaceutical companies, military contractors, banks and other corporations are on track to pay as much as $8 billion this year to resolve charges of defrauding the government, analysts say — a record sum and […]

A couple days ago Ed pulled out some quotes from this Noam Scheiber piece on Romney’s steroid-taking, screenwriting top strategist Stuart Stevens. It’s a good piece, and worth a read, but I’d like to highlight this aside: But just because Romney and Stevens get along doesn’t mean they’re a great team. In fact, they have […]

Last night Kevin Drum noticed a disturbing article about a UN system of emissions trading where developing countries would get compensated for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. Each gas was weighted based on its greenhouse gas potency, which makes sense because some chemicals are far more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. Methane is […]

Howdy folks, Ryan Cooper here, filling in for Ed today and tomorrow, as he’s taking a short break in Iowa to celebrate his birthday. (Many happy returns!) In lieu of music, today I present a bit of science. The question: how exactly do cats manage to always land on their feet? (Don’t worry, none are […]