Government employment actually FELL during this economic recovery. Is that why the recovery still doesn’t feel that strong?

The chart above is courtesy of here. It’s in turn via here, which notes that it’s fairly unprecedented, at least in modern times — government employment tends to rise during recoveries, but not so this time. The public sector has about 21.9 million… Continue Reading

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What’s the best city council in America? Austin, TX? Irvine, CA? Seattle, WA?

There are countless lists ranking the best Presidents ever, the best Governors currently, the best-run states in America, and tons of other political stuff. There’s a popular show about local/city government (Parks and Recreation), but broadly, we don’t speak about… Continue Reading

So, is Venice going to secede from Italy?

Secession always seems to be an issue somewhere around the world at some point, even in the good ol’ United States. It makes perfect sense: the “big man” (government) vs. “small man” (individual citizens/cities) narrative has become pretty dramatic in the… Continue Reading

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Patrick Moen and Paul Schmidt left the Oregon DEA to work … in the medical marijuana industry?

If you like this article or others on here, scroll on down to the bottom and share it up a bit. Patrick Moen, a DEA agent in Oregon, quit his job in late 2013 and now works for Privateer Holdings,… Continue Reading

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What exactly is happening with NC State and President Obama’s ideas on manufacturing?

That’s a clip from President Obama’s State of the Union 2013 — there’s a 2014 edition on January 28th, which is ironically only about four days after Netflix releases its Mitt Romney campaign documentary — where he talks about manufacturing… Continue Reading

Welcome to Election Day 2013, y’all

Good rundowns here, here, and here. The big show is in the Virginia governor race, but there’s also 312 Mayoral elections, including big ones in Boston (first open ballot in 20 years), NYC (no more Bloomberg), Seattle (expected to be tight),… Continue Reading

Where ObamaCare’s website seems to have screwed up

Start here. According to one specialist, healthcare.gov contains 500 million — yes, 500 million — lines of software code. By contrast, a large bank’s computer system will typically contain 100 million lines of code. Additionally, the project management here seems like a bit… Continue Reading