Little or no progress has been made on the war on drugs since its launch around 1970. Despite annual spending of about $51 billion, here are discouraging statistics from the government’s drugabuse.org website: Illicit drug use in the United States has been increasing. In 2013, an estimated 24.6 million Americans aged 12 or older—9.4 percent of […]
The Trouble at DoubleLine Was Predictable
Fortune breaks the bad news to readers that Jeffrey Gundlach’s DoubLine Total Return Bond Fund is having its worst year ever. Jeff Wieczner writes: DoubleLine CEO Jeffrey Gundlach’s flagship DoubleLine Total Return Bond Fund (DBLTX) is having its longest streak of underperformance on record, lagging most of its peers as well as the Barclays Aggregate […]
I Carry This Little Booklet Everywhere I Travel
About the Pocket Constitution From Cato Institute: To encourage people everywhere to better understand and appreciate the principles of government that are set forth in America’s founding documents, the Cato Institute published this pocket edition (3.5” x 5”) of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America. With more than […]
Google’s Project Wing Heads to Federal Testing Ground
Now that the U.S. government has given commercial drone flights its stamp of approval, there are many bugs that need to be worked out. The most pressing concern rules about line-of-sight piloting. If you want to successfully deliver products, you can’t be forced to watch your drone as it drops each parcel. So Google (now […]
New IED Jamming Technology for US Military
Source: Lockheed Martin Next Generation Counter IED System, Symphony Block 40, approved by U.S. Government to support U.S. and coalition forces Lockheed Martin provides global ground Electronic Warfare (EW) solutions to U.S. forces, as well as partner nations, through a unique Next Generation open architecture product platform and open business model. Our multi-function/multi-mission capability builds on […]
No Vital U.S. Interests Exist
Writing at The American Conservative, Pat Buchanan makes as good a case as can be made for “Realism and Restraint.” We have been at war since 2001. And as one looks on the ruins of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen, and adds up the thousands dead and wounded and trillions sunk and lost, can […]
Ethical, Sustainable Foie Gras?
About a five-hour car drive southwest of Madrid, a fifth-generation Spanish farmer and an ecologist and migratory bird expert are in business together—the foie gras business. Foie gras is, of course, that wonderful buttery, fatty goose or duck liver that is revered in Europe, especially in France. It’s also banned in at least 20 countries […]
Obama’s Foreign Policy Legacy Will Be Short-Lived
Barack Obama took office with a pretty high sense of his place in history. Beyond the indisputable significance of his being the first black U.S. president, Obama accepted the Democratic nomination in 2008 by hoping aloud that his election would be looked back on as the moment when we began to provide care for the […]
Turkey Running Amok
The National Interest makes the case that “Turkey needs to be sobered up.” Turkey’s President Erdogan has had a whopping seventy thousand people detained, fired or suspended. Aside from military personnel and police, this number includes thousands of teachers, deans, journalists and judges. The speed at which these individuals were rounded up has left many […]
Dangerous Rules Make American Pensions Riskier
The abuse of expected returns assumptions at public pension funds in America is something I have regularly raised a red flag about. Take a look here at The Economist’s comparison of American public pension fund rules with those for private funds and foreign public funds. The opportunity to use inflated future return expectations leads public pensions […]