MedWorm provides a medical RSS filtering service. Over 6000 RSS medical sources are combined and output via different filters. This feed contains the latest medical blog items that have been tagged with 'deficits'. Sat, 03 Sep 2011 02:30:45 +0100 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5169545&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=39187&url=http%3A%2F%2Fgetbetterhealth.com%2Fdo-physicians-have-a-role-in-controlling-healthcare-costs%2F2011.08.27 The Role of Physicians in Controlling Medical Care Costs and Reducing Waste by the RAND Corporation and David Geffen, University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine, Santa Monica was just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).  I do not think the JAMA should have published this article. 1.Why would the JAMA publish such an article? 2. Why are physicians blamed for all the waste in the system? 3. Why is it the physicians’ responsibility to eliminate waste when they are not the cause of the greatest percentage of the waste? “The amount of money spent on medical care is increasing faster than the gross domestic product (GDP), and the federal deficit is increasing.” The initial statement assumes that the government deficit is increasing because phy... Better Health blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5169545 Sat, 27 Aug 2011 21:05:19 +0100 5169545 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5103326&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FuHWTMteFnt0%2F By Caleb O. Brown… which makes this video out of date by about 20 minutes, but it’s instructive nonetheless. U.S. Credit Rating Downgraded by S&P is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog (Source: Cato-at-liberty) Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5103326 Sat, 06 Aug 2011 00:36:50 +0100 5103326 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4934121&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2Fpw9c0aAgXos%2F By Daniel GriswoldWith trillion dollar deficits and mounting federal debt, will Congress finally get serious about cutting farm subsidies? We’ve been disappointed before, but there are a few hopeful signs—like the front-page story in this morning’s Washington Post—that this Congress may be serious about cutting billions in payments to farmers. As the Post reports: In their recent budget proposals, House Republicans and House Democrats targeted farm subsidies, a program long protected by members of both parties. The GOP plan includes a $30 billion cut to direct payments over 10 years, which would slash them by more than half. Those terms are being considered in the debt-reduction talks led by Vice President Biden, according to people familiar with the discussions. The Post story pro... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4934121 Tue, 14 Jun 2011 18:20:42 +0100 4934121 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4893411&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FEowm-HZKXmA%2F By Chris EdwardsPresident Obama wants to raise revenues by reducing tax deductions and other tax breaks, which the administration calls “spending in the tax code.” Donald Marron of the Tax Policy Center argues that “hundreds of billions of dollars of spending are disguised as tax cuts.” Don is a very good economist, and he is concerned that special interest tax breaks can misallocate resources the same way that spending subsidies do. I agree. But I’m also concerned that tax breaks and spending subsidies have different implications for the size of government, which is where I part ways with Don and the president. The following Tax Policy Matrix helps sort out which sorts of tax cuts make economic sense when government size is also a consideration. The government distorts the econ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4893411 Thu, 02 Jun 2011 15:17:20 +0100 4893411 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4852846&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FPikhSJPN8_E%2F By David BoazThree stories in today’s Washington Post help us to understand why governments around the world are facing unmanageable deficits. On the front page: When Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero took power seven years ago, he and his Socialist Workers’ Party set out to perfect the welfare state in Spain. The goal was to equal— or even surpass — lavish social protections that have long been the rule for Spain’s Western European neighbors. True to his Socialist principles and riding an economic boom, Zapatero raised the minimum wage and extended health insurance to cover everything from sniffles to sex changes. He made scholarships available to all. Young adults got rent subsidies called “emancipation” money. Mothers got $3,500 for the birth of a child, todd... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4852846 Sun, 22 May 2011 16:11:23 +0100 4852846 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4803320&cid=t_133425_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2F75FcWMqfLxc%2F Individuals suffering from schizophrenia show social cognitive deficits, that is difficulties in perceiving and understanding the social world. Research shows that schizophrenia is accompanied by social cognition problems such as problems identifying facial expressions, understanding and responding to social cues (e.g., body language), understanding that others have different mental states and thoughts than oneself (also called Theory of mind). These deficits are usually persistent over time and resist pharmacological treatment. Interestingly, social cognition may be trainable. This recent article reviews the research and shows that social cognitive training programs : produce a moderate to large improvement in the recognition of facial emotions produce a smaller improvement in Theory of ... SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4803320 Mon, 09 May 2011 18:23:19 +0100 4803320 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4789203&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2Fl0GNcXjeCls%2F By Daniel GriswoldOur friends at the Economic Policy Institute are at it again, issuing another study this week that shows some particular trade agreement has costs X thousands of jobs over a certain number of years. The latest target of EPI’s flawed model is the North American Free Trade Agreement. Enacted in 1994, NAFTA has created a free trade zone comprising the United States, Canada, and Mexico. According to the EPI report, U.S. trade deficits with Mexico as of 2010 displaced production that could have supported 682,900 U.S. jobs; given the pre-NAFTA trade surplus, all of those jobs have been lost or displaced since NAFTA. This estimate of 682,900 net jobs displaced takes into account the additional jobs created by exports to Mexico. The report’s author, Robert Scott, claims it f... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4789203 Fri, 06 May 2011 01:40:06 +0100 4789203 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4622231&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FZ_y95HAocHs%2F By Tad DeHavenSen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has released a detailed plan that would balance the federal budget in five years. Paul’s plan would achieve balance by halting and reversing the historic rise in federal spending. Taxes would not be increased, but revenues would steadily increase as the economy recovers. The following charts compare Paul’s plan versus President Obama’s recent budget submission for fiscal 2012: While Obama intends to continue spending at a historically high level, Paul would reduce spending as a share of the economy. Paul takes the scalpel to all areas of federal spending, including discretionary, defense, and mandatory. However, it is not a radical plan. In fact, it’s a practical, common sense budget that recognizes that the federal government’s growth has be... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4622231 Mon, 21 Mar 2011 20:51:32 +0100 4622231 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4570530&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FyhHnxEePFbM%2F By Daniel GriswoldThe U.S. trade deficit rose in January, according to this morning’s monthly trade report from the U.S. Commerce Department, and on cue the news is being greeted as a bad omen for the U.S. economy. Reflecting the conventional wisdom, this morning’s Associated Press story states as a matter of fact, with no attribution: A widening trade deficit hurts the U.S. economy. When imports outpace exports, more jobs go to foreign workers than to U.S. workers. Oh really? As I’ve documented elsewhere, the U.S. economy actually grows faster during periods when the trade deficit is widening compared to when it is shrinking. That’s because an expanding economy increases demand for imports as well as domestically made goods. Stronger growth also attracts more foreign investment, w... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4570530 Thu, 10 Mar 2011 17:06:00 +0100 4570530 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4507262&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FA4YRqrIWVIY%2F By Daniel J. MitchellAmerica faces a fiscal crisis. The burden of federal spending has doubled during the Bush-Obama years, a $2 trillion increase in just 10 years. But that's just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Because of demographic changes and poorly designed entitlement programs, the federal budget is going to consume larger and larger shares of America's economic output in coming decades. For all intents and purposes, the United States appears doomed to become a bankrupt welfare state like Greece. But we can save ourselves. A previous video showed how both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton achieved positive fiscal changes by limiting the growth of federal spending, with particular emphasis on reductions in the burden of domestic spending. This new video from the Center for Freedom an... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4507262 Tue, 22 Feb 2011 14:16:41 +0100 4507262 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4495181&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FsL1_FYAgPiw%2F By Michael F. CannonEarlier this month, President Obama's HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius took to the Washington Post's op-ed page to reassure everybody that ObamaCare "puts states in the driver's seat" and "gives states incredible freedom to tailor reforms to their needs."  One grows weary of exposing the brazen falsehoods this administration incessantly and unconscionably peddles about its corrupt, unconstitutional, and irredeemable health care law.  But here I go again: the very idea that ObamaCare puts states in the driver's seat is nonsense. States already had the power to enact all the taxes, mandates, and price controls that ObamaCare expects them to implement — and to make what few choices ObamaCare leaves them.  If you want to know what Incredible Freedom really means, look... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4495181 Fri, 18 Feb 2011 16:14:00 +0100 4495181 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4477698&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FOKdeJvN1w8A%2F By Daniel J. MitchellPresident Obama's proposed budget for fiscal year 2012 has been released and there is lots of rhetoric in Washington about "budget cuts." At first glance, this seems warranted. According to the just-released fiscal blueprint, the federal government is spending about $3.8 trillion this year and the President is proposing to spending a bit more than $3.7 trillion next year. In other words, the White House is going beyond a budget freeze and is actually proposing to spend $90 billion less next year than is being spent this year. That certainly seems consistent with my proposal to solve America's fiscal problems by restraining the growth of spending. But you won't find a smile on my face. This new budget may be better than Obama's first two fiscal blueprints, but that's da... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4477698 Mon, 14 Feb 2011 19:47:45 +0100 4477698 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4477705&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FwJFsb7B85WQ%2F By Daniel J. MitchellPresident Obama unveiled his fiscal year 2012 budget today, and there's good news and bad news. The good news is that there's no major initiative such as the so-called stimulus scheme or the government-run healthcare proposal. The bad news, though, is that government is far too big and Obama's budget does nothing to address this problem. But perhaps the folks on Capitol Hill will be more responsible and actually try to save America from becoming a big-government, European-style welfare state. The solution may not be easy, but it is simple. Lawmakers merely need to restrain the growth of government spending so that it grows slower than the private economy. Actual spending cuts would be the best option, of course, but limiting the growth of spending is all that's needed ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4477705 Mon, 14 Feb 2011 15:17:13 +0100 4477705 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4445777&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FF-J4qTLWp2Y%2F By Daniel J. MitchellA new video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity gives four reasons why big government is bad fiscal policy. I particularly like the explanation of how government spending undermines growth by diverting labor and capital from the productive sector of the economy. Some cynics, though, say that it is futile to make arguments for good policy. They claim that politicians make bad fiscal decisions because of short-term considerations such as vote buying and raising campaign cash and that they don't care about the consequences. There's a lot of truth to this "public choice" analysis, but I don't think it explains everything. Maybe I'm an optimist, but I think we would have better fiscal policy if more lawmakers, journalists, academics, and others grasped the common-se... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4445777 Mon, 07 Feb 2011 20:44:10 +0100 4445777 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4399512&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FWtG_pnnH5gU%2F By David BoazThe national debt has just passed $14 trillion. It’s approaching the so-called “debt limit” of $14.3 trillion, and members of Congress face a vote on raising the limit that doesn’t limit. President Obama will no doubt stress his commitment to reducing deficits in his speech tonight, but it’s unlikely that he will propose any actual budget cuts or any serious entitlement reforms. And we’re told that he will propose new spending on infrastructure, education, and research in the face of trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see. We’ve become so used to these stunning, incomprehensible, unfathomable levels of deficits and debt — and to the once-rare concept of trillions of dollars — that we forget how new all this debt... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4399512 Tue, 25 Jan 2011 17:07:05 +0100 4399512 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4382755&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FSamESHnA_8M%2F By Daniel J. MitchellI’m not a big fan of central banks, and I definitely don’t like multilateral bureaucracies, so I almost feel guilty about publicizing two recent studies published by the European Central Bank. But when such an institution puts out research that unambiguously makes the case for smaller government, it’s time to sit up and take notice. And since these studies largely echo the findings of recent research by the International Monetary Fund, we may have reached a point where even the establishment finally understands that government is too big. The first study looks at real-world examples of debt reduction in 15 European nations and investigates the fiscal policies that worked and didn’t work. Entitled “Major Public Debt Reductions: Lessons From... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4382755 Fri, 21 Jan 2011 14:37:43 +0100 4382755 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4337919&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FkHbk2m319fQ%2F By Daniel J. MitchellThanks to decades of reckless spending by European welfare states, the newspapers are filled with headlines about debt, default, contagion, and bankruptcy. We know that Greece and Ireland already have received direct bailouts, and other European welfare states are getting indirect bailouts from the European Central Bank, which is vying with the Federal Reserve in a contest to see which central bank can win the “Most Likely to Appease the Political Class” Award. But which nation will be the next domino to fall? Who will get the next direct bailout? Some people think total government debt is the key variable, and there’s been a lot of talk that debt levels of 90 percent of GDP represent some sort of fiscal Maginot Line. Once nations get above that level... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4337919 Tue, 11 Jan 2011 17:53:45 +0100 4337919 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4253118&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F9jHx1bT-QCg%2F By Daniel J. MitchellWhen big-spending politicians in Washington pontificate about “deficit reduction,” taxpayers should be very wary. Crocodile tears about red ink almost always are a tactic that the political class uses to make tax increases more palatable. The way it works is that the crowd in DC increases spending, which leads to more red ink, which allows them to say we have a deficit crisis, which gives them an excuse to raise taxes, which then gives them more money to spend. This additional spending then leads to more debt, which provides a rationale for higher taxes, and the pattern continues — sort of a lather-rinse-repeat cycle of big government. Fortunately, it looks like the American people have figured out this scam. By a 57-34 margin, they say that reducing ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4253118 Sun, 12 Dec 2010 20:06:59 +0100 4253118 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4237875&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FpS8DMyu2IFQ%2F By Daniel J. MitchellCompared to ideal policy, the deal announced last night between congressional Republicans and President Obama is terrible. Compared to what I expected to happen, the deal announced last night is pretty good. In other words, grading this package depends on your benchmark. This is why reaction has been all over the map, featuring dour assessments from people like Pejman Yousefzadeh and cheerful analysis from folks such as Jennifer Rubin. With apologies to Clint Eastwood, let’s review the good, the bad, and the ugly. The Good The good parts of the agreement is the avoidance of bad things, sort of the political version of the Hippocratic oath — do no harm. Tax rates next year are not going to increase. The main provisions of the 2001 and 2003 tax acts are exte... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4237875 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 13:35:01 +0100 4237875 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4219731&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F8QBjyJOWmSE%2F By Daniel J. MitchellThe Chairmen of President Obama’s Fiscal Commission have a new draft proposal that is filled, according to Reuters, with “sharp spending and benefit cuts.” That’s music to my ears, so I quickly flipped to the back of the report in hopes of finding hard numbers showing that the federal government will be smaller in future years. Much to my chagrin, it turns out that the federal government will increase by about $1.5 trillion between 2010 and 2020 according to the Commission’s numbers. Here’s a chart based on the data from page 57. As I explain in the video below, this disconnect between supposed spending cuts and actual spending increases is the result of politicians creating a system where a spending increase can be called a “... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4219731 Wed, 01 Dec 2010 16:44:17 +0100 4219731 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4190132&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F8iLCUwDSaaQ%2F By Caleb O. BrownU.S. Representative Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) believes that cutting the military means rethinking the purpose of our military. He argues that the far-flung adventures that have killed thousands of American soldiers and consumed trillions of dollars simply haven’t been justified by U.S. defense needs. He also takes issue with President Obama exempting military spending from his so-called “spending freeze” proposed earlier this year. He spoke at the Cato Institute November 19, 2010. Barney Frank: Cut Military Spending by Following Cato Plan is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog (Source: Cato-at-liberty) Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4190132 Mon, 22 Nov 2010 16:10:09 +0100 4190132 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4159221&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FkAivM-Ud-r0%2F By Caleb O. Brown As governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson succeeded in eliminating New Mexico’s budget deficit, cutting the rate of growth in state government in half, and privatizing half of the state prisons. During Johnson’s term, New Mexico experienced the longest period without a tax increase in the state’s history. He vetoed 750 bills in eight years, more than all other governors combined. The Economist dubbed him “America’s boldest governor” — and that was before he took on drug prohibition. He discussed drug policy and other issues at the Cato Institute November 1, 2010 at a Cato on Campus forum. Subscribe to Cato’s YouTube Channel. Gary Johnson and Drug Policy is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog (Source: Cato-at-liber... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4159221 Thu, 11 Nov 2010 16:37:19 +0100 4159221 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4159342&cid=t_133425_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2FUtytOJSwRZg%2F An excellent article by the Dana Foundation clarifies what the “Real Deficit in Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder” is. Thank you to John from our Sharp­Brains’ group in LinkedIn for pointing it out. Among other things, this article shows you that attention is more complex that you probably thought: Scientists have identified at least three major components of attention that are served by discrete but integrally connected neural networks. The “alerting network” .… The “orienting network”.…executive attention.…. And that there is more than one explanation offered for the deficits observed in children with ADHD: Various other hypotheses have emerged recently in the ADHD literature .… Each of these theories offers tantalizing clues about what might be going wrong ... SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4159342 Thu, 11 Nov 2010 16:33:54 +0100 4159342 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4159222&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2Fzs-AIlTX99k%2F By Daniel J. MitchellI have many pet peeves, but one that causes me endless frustration is the Washington “spending cut” scam. This happens when politicians increase spending, but claim that they’re cutting spending because they previously had planned to make government even bigger. The proposal unveiled yesterday by the Co-Chairman of President Obama’s Fiscal Commission is a good example. If you read through their report, it sounds like there are lots of spending cuts. But they never explain that these supposed cuts are really just reductions in previously-planned increases. Here’s the bottom line. As shown in the graph, it is quite simple to balance the budget (and permanently extend all of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts) if politicians simply limit spending gro... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4159222 Thu, 11 Nov 2010 16:02:04 +0100 4159222 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4151750&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FJzZhhZ7EcRY%2F By Daniel J. MitchellEarly in the Obama Administration, there was an amusing/embarrassing incident when Chinese students laughed at Treasury Secretary Geithner when he claimed the United States had a strong-dollar policy. I suspect that even Geithner would be smart enough to avoid such a claim today, not after the Fed’s announcement (with the full support of the White House and Treasury) that it would flood the economy with $600 billion of hot money. Here’s what my colleague Alan Reynolds wrote in the Wall Street Journal about Bernanke’s policy. Mr. Bernanke…believes (contrary to our past experience with stagflation) that inflation is no danger thanks to economic slack (high unemployment). He reasons that if people can nonetheless be persuaded to expect higher infl... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4151750 Wed, 10 Nov 2010 16:01:13 +0100 4151750 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4133663&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FOtN5N5n25OI%2F By David BoazSome 75 new Republican members of Congress got there by promising to stop the federal government’s massive overspending. And as Chris Edwards noted, there have been a number of lists of budget cuts proposed recently. Saturday Night Live did a sketch back in 2007 that might be useful to Tea Partiers and new members of Congress. It’s about a self-help plan called “Don’t Buy Stuff You Cannot Afford.” Since the federal government is running deficits well over a trillion dollars a year, I’d say this plan would be good advice: Hat tip to Jonathan Witt at the Acton Institute’s PowerBlog, who points out that if this were a perfect analogy, the book author would be more agitated because “the couple has been spending the author’s money ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4133663 Thu, 04 Nov 2010 19:13:11 +0100 4133663 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4045073&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2Faf_jCffPcN0%2F By Daniel J. MitchellHere’s a chart from Veronique de Rugy’s new article on federal revenues vs. spending in The American. Amazing how the problem becomes obvious when you look at real numbers and don’t get trapped into using “baseline” math (as I explain in my latest video). By the way, find out when John Stossel’s program on Fox Business News airs in your area. Veronique is a guest this week talking about these issues. Do We Have a Problem of Too Much Spending or Too Little Revenue? is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog (Source: Cato-at-liberty) Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4045073 Fri, 08 Oct 2010 18:50:08 +0100 4045073 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4036625&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F-IAePP9TisM%2F By Daniel J. MitchellKeynesian economic theory is the social science version of a perpetual motion machine. It assumes that you can increase your prosperity by taking money out of your left pocket and putting it in your right pocket. Not surprisingly, nations that adopt this approach do not succeed. Deficit spending did not work for Hoover and Roosevelt is the 1930s. It did not work for Japan in the 1990s. And it hasn’t worked for Bush or Obama. The Keynesians invariably respond by arguing that these failures simply show that politicians didn’t spend enough money. I don’t know whether to be amused or horrified, but some Keynesians even say that a war would be the best way of boosting economic growth. Here’s a blurb from a story in National Journal. America’s... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4036625 Wed, 06 Oct 2010 17:38:35 +0100 4036625 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4031220&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FcnNZY-c7_eA%2F By Daniel J. MitchellOur fiscal policy goal should be smaller government, but here’s a video for folks who think that balancing the budget should be the main objective. The main message is that restraining the growth of government is the right way to get rid of red ink, so there is no conflict between advocates of limited government and serious supporters of fiscal balance. More specifically, the video shows that it is possible to quickly balance the budget while also making all the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent and protecting taxpayers from the alternative minimum tax. All these good things can happen if politicians simply limit annual spending growth to 2 percent each year. And they’ll happen even faster if spending grows at an even slower rate. This debunks the statist a... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4031220 Mon, 04 Oct 2010 18:29:20 +0100 4031220 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4018161&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FwUHSuC1bydo%2F By Daniel J. MitchellWhile I’m glad Republicans are finally talking about smaller government, I’ve expressed some disappointment with the GOP Pledge to America. Why “reform” Fannie and Freddie, I asked, when the right approach is to get the government completely out of the housing sector. Jacob Sullum of Reason is similarly underwhelmed. He writes: In the “Pledge to America” they unveiled last week, House Republicans promise they will “launch a sustained effort to stem the relentless growth in government that has occurred over the past decade.” Who better for the job than the folks who ran the government for most of that time? …Republicans, you may recall, had a spending spree of their own during George W. Bush’s recently conclude... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4018161 Thu, 30 Sep 2010 15:15:16 +0100 4018161 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3993877&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FEXtRwURzsag%2F By Daniel J. MitchellJohn Podesta of the Center for American Progress had a column in Politico yesterday asserting that “closing the budget gap entirely on the spending side would require draconian programmatic cuts.” He went on to complain that there are some people who “refuse to look at the revenue side of the ledger – while insisting that we dig the hole $830 billion deeper over the next decade by extending the Bush tax cuts.”   Not surprisingly, Mr. Podesta is totally wrong. It’s actually not that challenging to balance the budget. And it doesn’t even require any spending cuts, though it would be a very good idea to dramatically downsize the federal government. Here’s a chart showing this year’s spending and revenue totals. It then sh... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3993877 Wed, 22 Sep 2010 16:02:58 +0100 3993877 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3942774&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F9fL96ThU808%2F By Tad DeHavenThe finances of the U.S. Postal Service are deeply in the red. The agency faces a permanently reduced demand for its services and its labor accounts for almost 80 percent of its costs. Thus it is not a good time for postal employees to get an increase in wages and benefits, right? According to one postal union, the USPS’s deteriorating condition isn’t relevant. The American Postal Workers Union, which represents more than 200,000 employees, has recently entered collective bargaining negotiations for a new contract. In an interview with Government Executive, APWU President William Burrus calls a pay increase for his members an “entitlement”: “More — more control over activities at work, more money, better benefits — we want more,” said Burrus. “We wil... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3942774 Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:47:00 +0100 3942774 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3920957&cid=t_133425_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2F80LA7jt6c3E%2F What is working memory, and why it matters? Can we multi-task as good as we seem to assume? What should we all know about how our brains work, and why? We hope you enjoy this August eNewsletter, featuring six distinguished contributors who answer those questions, and more. Please remember that you can subscribe to receive this free Brain Fitness eNewsletter by email, using the box in the right column. Know Thyself Why working memory matters in the knowledge age: As Dr. Tracy Alloway points out, one way to visualize working memory is as the brain’s “Post-it Notes” — we make mental scribbles of bits of information we need to remember and work with. Without enough working memory we cannot function as a society or as individuals. Learn more by participating in this study launched by D... SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3920957 Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:23:05 +0100 3920957 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3911683&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FlTZULwHrnwU%2F By Daniel IkensonAs usual, Dan Griswold does an excellent job today correcting fallacies about trade and the trade deficit that continue to be perpetuated in the mainstream media (particularly at the Washington Post).   I just want to add my two cents without belaboring any of Dan’s succinctly-made points.  (Besides, I’ve harped on and on and on and on and on about the problem of trade reporting this year.) It’s a shame that so much time and energy has to be diverted to cleaning up messes left by reporters and editors, who should know better by now. The bottom line is that neither imports nor trade deficits cause U.S. job loss or slower economic growth.  If anything, the charts below (all compiled from BEA and BLS data) support the conclusion that imports and the trade deficit ris... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3911683 Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:12:48 +0100 3911683 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3907583&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FHHS4AV0nPuY%2F By David Boaz“Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said Tuesday that he will hold a hearing this fall to examine whether regulators are being tough enough in curbing pay practices at Wall Street firms that can lead to excessively risky practices,” writes Zachary Goldfarb in the Washington Post. Hmmm. “Pay practices that can lead to excessively risky practices.” Since Barney Frank entered Congress, federal spending has risen from $590 billion in 1980 to $3.7 trillion this year. (U.S. Budget, Historical Tables, Table 1.1) The annual deficit has risen from $74 billion to $1.5 trillion.  Gross federal debt rose from $909 billion to $13.8 trillion — and to over $15 trillion next year. (Table 7.1) And all this without a major war o... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3907583 Thu, 26 Aug 2010 21:11:01 +0100 3907583 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3907587&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FiC5M7-NXd2s%2F By David BoazE. J. Dionne writes in the Washington Post today that many Republicans think the George W. Bush administration was “too ready to run up the deficit.” But, he says, That the deficit increased primarily because of two tax cuts and two wars was not part of most conservatives’ calculation because acknowledging this was ideologically inconvenient. That’s one explanation. Of course, spending did rise by more than a trillion dollars during Bush’s eight years, and it wasn’t all military spending. And as Michael Tanner writes today, “The Deficit Is a Symptom, Spending Is the Disease.” Traditionally, federal spending has run around 21 percent of GDP. But George W. Bush and (even more dramatically) Barack Obama have now driven federal spend... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3907587 Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:21:00 +0100 3907587 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3895870&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FRl1g5JzgfnQ%2F I hope the title of this post is an exaggeration, but it’s certainly a logical conclusion based on what is written in the Congressional Budget Office’s updated Economic and Budget Outlook. The Capitol Hill bureaucracy basically has a deficit-über-alles view of fiscal policy. CBO’s long-run perspective, as shown by this excerpt, is that deficits reduce output by “crowding out” private capital and that anything that results in lower deficits (or larger surpluses) will improve economic performance — even if this means big increases in tax rates. CBO has also examined an alternative fiscal scenario reflecting several changes to current law that are widely expected to occur or that would modify some provisions of law that might be difficult to sustain for a ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3895870 Sun, 22 Aug 2010 18:00:18 +0100 3895870 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3880832&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FAm5h5LMNov0%2F Following Dan’s and David’s recent posts on the trade deficit and its (ir)relevance, allow me to draw readers’ attention to the Economist’s “By Invitation” blog, where invited prominent economists debate topical economic issues. One of their current questions is: Should governments take any steps to boost exports? That’s an important topic, and an especially timely one given the Obama administration’s ‘National Export Initiative,’ a five-year plan to double U.S. exports. All of us here at Cato’s trade center have previously expressed skepticism about the feasiblity and/or wisdom of that plan, and Dan Ikenson blogged earlier today about the administration’s apparent incoherence in pursuit of that goal.  The Economis... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3880832 Tue, 17 Aug 2010 20:21:01 +0100 3880832 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3861995&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FQ3W4SYstG6M%2F By Daniel GriswoldIt has become conventional wisdom that a rising trade deficit is bad news for the economy. This week’s announcement of an expanding deficit in June prompted such headlines today as this one in the news pages of the Wall Street Journal: “Wider Trade Gap Signals Weak Growth.” As my colleague David Boaz blogged earlier today, the trade deficit is even blamed for daily swings in the stock market. I’ve been studying and writing about the trade deficit for years, and devoted a whole chapter of by 2009 Cato book Mad about Trade to the subject, and I keep coming back to a basic question: If the trade deficit signals weak growth, why does the U.S. economy seem to perform so much better during periods when the trade deficit is growing, and so much worse when the trade defic... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3861995 Thu, 12 Aug 2010 20:32:45 +0100 3861995 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3827188&cid=t_133425_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2FmoCgaTUZUos%2F In conclusion, results from this follow-up study provide evidence that neurofeedback can yield enduring benefits for some children with ADHD. As suggested by the authors, it may be an important component of a multimodal treatment program but its consistent use as a stand alone treatment does not seem to be supported by the findings reported here. – Dr. David Rabiner is a child clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist and Direc­tor of Under­grad­u­ate Stud­ies in the Depart­ment of Psy­chol­ogy and Neu­ro­science at Duke Uni­ver­sity. His research focuses on var­i­ous issues related to ADHD, the impact of atten­tion prob­lems on aca­d­e­mic achieve­ment, and atten­tion train­ing. He also pub­lishes Atten­tion Research Update, a com­pli­men­tary online newslet­ter that h... SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3827188 Thu, 05 Aug 2010 16:24:15 +0100 3827188 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3746720&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FyCGmWkRbIYY%2F By Daniel J. MitchellI like poking fun at French politicians for being hopeless statists, and I always assumed that French voters shared their collectivist sympathies. But according to new polling data reported by the Financial Times, there may be a Tea Party revolt brewing in France. Among major European nations, the French are most in favor of smaller government. Sacre Bleu! European governments have solid public support, at least for now, for the spending cuts they are making in an effort to boost economic recovery, according to the latest Financial Times/Harris opinion poll. …The poll’s results point to a fiscal conservatism among the European public that contrasts with the eagerness with which most governments ran up high deficits to protect jobs and living standards as the c... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3746720 Mon, 12 Jul 2010 18:06:21 +0100 3746720 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3710548&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FqE2JNtamXyI%2F By David BoazJournalists have been repeating lately that “economists say” that we need yet more government spending now to keep on goosing the economy, even though — to be sure — we will need to cut back on spending at some point in the undefined future, to avoid the fate of Greece. Well, maybe some economists. But I’m sure this “economists agree” claim is no more true today than it was a year ago. Here’s one example, from NYU economist Mario J. Rizzo, coauthor with Cato senior fellow Gerald P. O’Driscoll Jr. of The Economics of  Time and Ignorance: But let’s look at the arguments made by the opponents of fiscal stimulus. Some have argued that, as deficits increase, people now offset the putative stimulus by increasing their savings ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3710548 Tue, 29 Jun 2010 16:31:10 +0100 3710548 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3710551&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FjxNZxtg2TVM%2F By Daniel J. MitchellThere is considerable academic research on the growth-maximizing level of government spending. Based on a good bit of research, I’m fairly confident that Cato’s Richard Rahn was the first to popularize this concept, so we are going to make him famous (sort of like Art Laffer) in this new video explaining that there is a spending version of the Laffer Curve and that it shows how government is far too large and that this means less prosperity. (Source: Cato-at-liberty) Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3710551 Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:35:41 +0100 3710551 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3699478&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FrCtgUIFqPFQ%2F By Daniel J. MitchellBarack Obama and Angela Merkel are the two main characters in what is being portrayed as a fight between American “stimulus” and European “austerity” at the G-20 summit meeting in Canada. My immediate instinct is to cheer for the Europeans. After all, “austerity” presumably means cutting back on wasteful government spending. Obama’s definition of “stimulus,” by contrast, is borrowing money from China and distributing it to various Democratic-leaning special-interest groups.   But appearances can be deceiving. Austerity, in the European context, means budget balance rather than spending reduction. As such, David Cameron’s proposal to boost the U.K.’s value-added tax from 17.5 percent to 20 percent is su... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3699478 Fri, 25 Jun 2010 15:46:59 +0100 3699478 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3603579&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FY8KVrKXofkY%2F By Daniel J. MitchellYou don’t need to watch old Gunsmoke episodes if you want to travel into the past. Just read the latest Congressional Budget Office “research” claiming that Obama’s so-called stimulus “increased the number of full-time-equivalent jobs by 1.8 million to 4.1 million.” CBO’s analysis is a throwback to the widely discredited Keynesian theory that assumes you can enrich yourself by switching money from your left pocket to right pocket. For all intents and purposes, CBO wants us to believe their Keynesian model and ignore real world data. This is akin to the famous line attributed to Willie Nelson, who was caught with another woman by his wife and supposedly said, “Are you going to believe me or your lying eyes?” Using i... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3603579 Wed, 26 May 2010 18:18:19 +0100 3603579 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3552226&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FRgcYIr2G6OE%2F By David BoazOn Thursday I noted that former California House Speaker Willie Brown said we shouldn’t worry about the cost of government workers’ pensions because “My guess is that the State of California, like most places involved with pensions, is going to cease to pay them.” My former colleague Andrew Biggs, writing at The American, says Speaker Brown and I are, believe it or not, too optimistic: In most states, accrued public-sector pension benefits carry an effective property right, either through legal rulings or outright constitutional provisions. As Donald Kohn, the vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, put it, “For all intents and purposes, accrued benefits have turned out to be riskless obligations.” Some states interpret these rights as prospect... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3552226 Mon, 10 May 2010 18:47:37 +0100 3552226 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3533814&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2Fa_VwLCZPwK8%2F By Daniel J. MitchellKevin Williamson has a long-overdue piece in National Review making two essential points about supply-side economics and the Laffer Curve. First, he explains that tax cuts are not the fiscal equivalent of a perpetual motion machine. Simply stated, too many Republicans have fallen into very sloppy habits. They oftentimes fail to understand the difference between “supply-side” tax rate reductions that actually improve incentives to engage in productive behavior and social-engineering tax cuts that simply allow people to keep more money, regardless of whether they create more wealth. This does not necessarily mean the latter form of tax cuts are bad, but they definitely do not boost economic performance and generate revenue feedback. Moreover, even when GOPers... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3533814 Wed, 05 May 2010 12:43:36 +0100 3533814 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3408358&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FFo-0ZrD8ZMA%2F By Tad DeHavenThis week the Congressional Budget Office released its analysis of the president’s FY2011 budget. The CBO projects that combined deficits for 2011-2020 under the president’s budget will be $1.2 trillion (for a total of $9.7 trillion) higher than the Office of Management & Budget’s forecast. The CBO projects that debt held by the public as a percentage of GDP will be significantly higher: One major reason why the CBO projects higher deficits than the OMB is because the CBO projects that cumulative revenue over the period will be lower (its economic growth assumptions aren’t as rosy as the OMB’s). But a lack of revenues isn’t the big problem. The CBO projects that revenues as a percentage GDP would rebound from 14.5 percent in FY2010 to 19.6 percent in FY2020. ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3408358 Fri, 26 Mar 2010 11:18:55 +0100 3408358 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3395112&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F3XDrt0gUkyE%2F By Daniel GriswoldLost in the buzz last week over health care was the news that the broadest measure of the U.S. trade deficit fell sharply in 2009 from the year before. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the U.S. current account deficit plunged from $706 billion in 2008 to $420 billion last year — the smallest deficit since 2001. I’ve been waiting for a few days now for the usual trade deficit hawks to hail this development as great news for millions of Americans looking for work. In years when the trade deficit was rising, it was common practice for the labor-union-friendly Economic Policy Institute to publish detailed studies showing that larger trade deficits caused the U.S. economy to lose hundreds of thousands of jobs each year. For example, according to an October... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3395112 Mon, 22 Mar 2010 19:25:33 +0100 3395112 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3354297&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FsCH1nt1xT6c%2F By Chris Moody Greece, here we come…. Congressional Budget Office estimates budget deficits will average nearly $1 trillion per year for the next decade. Matt Drudge re-titles a Cato op-ed: “Mob Tactics Used to Push Healthcare Through.” Daniel Griswold: “On trade, as on so much else, the populists have it wrong again. Free trade and globalization are great blessings to families across America.“ Could Dennis Kucinich bring both sides of the aisle  together to end the war in Afghanistan? Podcast: “Seventies Redux?” featuring John Samples, author of the forthcoming book The Struggle to Limit Government. (Source: Cato-at-liberty) Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3354297 Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:44:14 +0100 3354297 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3302304&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F616ciamU-w8%2F By José PineraThe Maastricht Treaty requires countries in the eurozone not to exceed a public debt of 60% of GDP. Well, now almost all of them have an official debt exceeding that ceiling. But the situation is immensely worse because European states also have huge, and largely hidden, unfunded liabilities arising from their pension and health systems. According to a 2009 study by my colleague Jagadeesh Gokhale, the true debt of the 25 European countries is, on average, 434% of GDP. And the treaties that underpin European integration do not say a word about such debt. Greece’s true debt is 875% of GDP and its current problems are just the first act of the coming fiscal bankruptcy of Europe. In my 2004 essay “Will the Pension Time Bomb Sink the Euro?”, I concluded that... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3302304 Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:27:26 +0100 3302304 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3294572&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FQ8KukpfAq1E%2F By Tad DeHavenThat is the title of a 2003 New York Times column by economist Paul Krugman. The gist of his column was that the Bush tax cuts and future entitlement program liabilities would usher in calamitous deficits. Setting aside the tax cut and entitlements issue, Krugman’s comments on the dangers of deficits are interesting considering seven years later Krugman is one of the most prominent supporters of massive deficit spending to stimulate the economy. Here are some selected Krugman quotes from the column: With war looming, it’s time to be prepared. So last week I switched to a fixed-rate mortgage. It means higher monthly payments, but I’m terrified about what will happen to interest rates once financial markets wake up to the implications of skyrocketing budget defici... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3294572 Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:57:29 +0100 3294572 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3287719&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FOrHZNStS1Ds%2F By Daniel J. MitchellWhile admitting that spending restraint is the ideal approach, Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution asks whether a value-added tax (VAT) might be the most desirable of all realistic options for dealing with an unsustainable budget situation. Read his post for yourself, but I think a fair summary is that he is basically saying that a) there will be a crisis if we don’t do something about future deficits, b) a crisis will result in very bad policy, and c) if we support a VAT now, we will at least be able to extract concessions from the other side. I have no idea whether there will be a future crisis, but I think the rest of Tyler’s argument is wrong. But before explaining my position, let’s start by stating what I assume to be our mutual objective, which ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3287719 Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:39:45 +0100 3287719 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3227720&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F3sNsaUG-6i0%2F By Daniel J. MitchellThe Office of Management and Budget has released the President’s FY2011 budget and the Congressional Budget Office has released its semi-annual Budget and Economic Outlook. Much of the coverage of these documents has focused on deficit numbers. This is not a trivial concern, particularly since the Bush-Obama policies of bigger government have dramatically boosted red ink. But the most important numbers in the budget documents are the estimates of what is happening to government spending. The good news is that burden of government spending is projected to decline over the next few years from about 25 percent of GDP to less than 23 percent of GDP. That’s the good news. The bad news is that federal government outlays only consumed 18.2 percent of economic out... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3227720 Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:06:27 +0100 3227720 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3149030&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FD2SGI9kBI9g%2F By Daniel J. MitchellEven though I’ve been in Washington for almost 25 years, I still get shocked by the deceit and double-talk that characterizes this town. A perfect example can be found in today’s Wall Street Journal, which features a column by Karl Rove attacking President Obama for fiscal incontinence. I’m a big fan of condemning Obama’s big-government schemes, but Rove is the last person in the world who should be complaining about too much wasteful spending. After all, he was the top adviser to President Bush and the federal budget exploded during Bush’s eight years, climbing from $1.8 trillion to more than $3.5 trillion. More specifically, Rove was a leading proponent of the proposals that dramatically expanded the size and scope of the federal governm... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3149030 Thu, 07 Jan 2010 14:36:55 +0100 3149030 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3079319&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FO_tvrkpNPYg%2F By Daniel J. MitchellLegislation being considered on Capitol Hill would create a supposed deficit reduction commission. If politicians were bound by truth-in-advertising, this proposal would be called a tax increase commission. It creates a mechanism that will — at best — replicate the 1982 and 1990 budget summits, both of which were fiscal disasters from the perspective of those who favor limited government. The inevitable result of a “bipartisan” process is a 50/50 deal of “spending cuts” and “tax increases,” but the spending cuts are off the “baseline” (which assumes spending goes up), so even if the changes are real (and they rarely are), they are merely reductions in increases. The tax increases, meanwhile, are real and come ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3079319 Fri, 11 Dec 2009 00:40:03 +0100 3079319 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3075478&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FJgUE4NKrvDg%2F By Chris EdwardsIn his Brookings Institution speech yesterday, President Obama called for more Keynesian-style spending stimulus for the economy, including increased investment on government projects and expanded subsidy payments to the unemployed and state governments. The package might cost $150 billion or more. The president said that we’ve had to “spend our way out of this recession.” We’ve certainly had massive spending, but it doesn’t seemed to have helped the economy, as the 10 percent unemployment rate attests to. It’s not just that the Obama “stimulus” package from February has apparently failed. The total Keynesian stimulus is not measured by the spending in that bill only, but by the total size of federal government defici... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3075478 Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:43:42 +0100 3075478 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3039764&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FdB8uKN8QnFo%2F I caught a lot of flack from my Republican friends for my post blaming the FY2009 deficit on Bush instead of Obama. Well, I must be a glutton for punishment because I can’t resist jumping (albeit reluctantly) to Obama’s defense again. I’m venting my spleen for two reason. First, FoxNews.com posted a story headlined “Obama Shatters Spending Record for First-Year Presidents” and noted that: President Obama has shattered the budget record for first-year presidents — spending nearly double what his predecessor did when he came into office and far exceeding the first-year tabs for any other U.S. president in history. In fiscal 2009 the federal government spent $3.52 trillion …That fiscal year covered the last three-and-a-half months of George W. Bush&#8... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3039764 Sun, 29 Nov 2009 16:15:53 +0100 3039764 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3008068&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FYJpYxCCNmzA%2F Some critics are lambasting President Obama for record deficits. This is not a productive line of attack, largely because it puts the focus on the wrong variable. America’s fiscal problem is excessive government spending, and deficits are merely a symptom of that underlying disease. Moreover, if deficits are perceived as the problem, that means both spending restraint and higher taxes are solutions. The political class, needless to say, will choose the latter approach 99 percent of the time. A higher tax burden, however, simply means that debt-financed spending is replaced by tax-financed spending, which is akin to jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire, or vice-versa. In addition to being theoretically misguided, critics sometimes blame Obama for things that are not his f... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3008068 Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:17:59 +0100 3008068 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2970193&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2Fxk__WxdXo-g%2F The Democrats’ ingenious plan to disguise the true cost of their health care bills. The health care legislation moving through Congress could increase young adults’ premiums by 100 percent. Why raising taxes won’t fix the deficit. Just look at California. And Rhode Island. And New York. “What profiteth a political party if it gains congressional seats but loseth its soul?” —Michael D. Tanner (Yes, he’s referring to Republicans.) Here we go again: The No Child Left Behind Act is up for renewal. Podcast: “Ayn Rand’s Affinities and Animosities“ (Source: Cato-at-liberty) Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2970193 Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:43:25 +0100 2970193 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2904996&cid=t_133425_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2FMA9xqieJimg%2F We are very excited to announce the first SharpBrains Summit, a virtual conference to take place January 18-20th, 2010.  Over 25 leading speakers (see confirmed speakers below) and a professional audience will discuss emerging innovation and technology for lifelong cognitive health and performance. The Summit will highlight the convergence of neurocognitive research, non-invasive technology and healthcare, discuss emerging best practices, and help predict how a growing range of tools may provide solutions to cognitive health and performance-related issues. We are now finalizing agenda and contacting sponsors and partners. Details will be ready, and registration open, by the end of October. In the meantime, please Save the Date if you are interested in participating: January 18-20th 2010 ... SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2904996 Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:19:36 +0100 2904996 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2904862&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FKJVwVWrl6K8%2F I’m not a fan of the House Democrats’ proposed takeover of the health care sector.  (If there’s one thing that legislation is not, it’s “reform.”)  But at least House Democrats were honest enough to include the cost of the $245 billion bump in Medicare physician payments in their legislation, unlike some committee chairmen I could mention. Unfortunately, House Democrats have since decided that dishonesty is the better strategy.  They, like Senate Democrats, now plan to strip that additional Medicare spending out of health “reform” and enact it separately.  (Democrats are already trying to exempt that spending from pay-as-you-go rules, making it easier for them to expand our record federal deficits.)  Why enact it separately?  Because excising that spending from the �... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2904862 Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:44:36 +0100 2904862 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2876024&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2Fz3uyza6fyC4%2F The CBO report that said the health care bill won’t raise deficits makes it clear that the Baucus bill’s reduction in future budget deficits comes not from controlling government spending or reducing health care costs, but because of a rapid escalation in tax revenues. The bill imposes a 40 percent excise tax on health-insurance plans that offer benefits in excess of $8,000 for an individual plan and $21,000 for a family plan. Insurers would almost certainly pass this tax on to consumers via higher premiums. As inflation pushes insurance premiums higher in coming years, more and more middle-class families would find themselves caught up in the tax. In fact, overall, the tax increases in the bill are more than double the amount of deficit reduction. This isn’t a health care effici... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2876024 Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:55:32 +0100 2876024 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2473189&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FOVHZMzbFKSM%2F Will Obama Raise Middle-Class Taxes to Fund Health Care? President Obama is promoting an expansion in federal health care spending, and Democratic leaders are scrambling to find ways to pay for it. The plan is expected to cost about $1.5 trillion over the next decade, but the administration has promised that health care legislation won’t add to already huge federal budget deficits. In a new paper, Cato scholars Michael D. Tanner and Chris Edwards argue that expanding government health care will likely involve huge tax increases on the middle class. Tanner warns of “Obamacare” to come, saying that Obama’s new health care plan will give “government control over one-sixth of the U.S. economy, and over some of the most important, personal, and private decisions in Americans&#8217... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2473189 Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:17:08 +0100 2473189 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2458243&cid=t_133425_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2F1xndaexWxAA%2F This is a partial list of the literature we reviewed during the research phase of our new book, The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness.  We know many friends of SharpBrains are researchers, healthcare professionals, graduate/ Ph.D. students, who want have direct access to the references (perhaps PubMed should promote itself as a never ending source of mental stimulation?), so here you have this list, organized by relevant chapter. Please note that the list below appears in the book - whose manuscript we had to close in January 2009. Introduction • Basak, C. et al. (2008). Can training in a real-time strategy video game attenuate cognitive decline in older adults? Psychology and Aging. • Begley, S. (2007). Train your mind, change your brain: How a new science reveals our extraordinary ... SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2458243 Sat, 06 Jun 2009 19:24:20 +0100 2458243 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2441159&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2Feec0ar9aTGM%2F Colleague Dan Mitchell sent me this heart-warming press release from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an international government organization. Tax collectors worldwide to co-operate in revenue-raising to offset fiscal deficits. The sub-heading is “Tax Commissioners Worldwide Join Forces To Tackle Fiscal Challenges Posed By The Financial And Economic Crisis.” Crazy me, but I thought the way to get out of the economic crisis was for businesses and entrepreneurs to start investing and hiring again. But no, the key is apparently to launch a global drive to drain more money from the damaged private sector and fatten up the coffers of bloated governments. The chair of the OECD’s Forum on Tax Administration, Pravin Gorhan, helpfully points out ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2441159 Fri, 29 May 2009 21:43:51 +0100 2441159 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2441173&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2Fs4bH_Ap6yDI%2F Desperate for fresh revenues to feed the giant spending appetite of President Obama, Democratic policymakers are talking up ‘tax reform’ as a way to reduce the deficit. Some are considering a European-style value-added tax (VAT), which would have a similar effect as a national sales tax, and be a large new burden on American families. A VAT would raise hundreds of billions of dollars a year for the government, even at a 10-percent rate. The math is simple: total U.S. consumption in 2008 was $10 trillion. VATs usually tax about half of a nation’s consumption or less, say $5 trillion. That means that a 10% VAT would raise about $500 billion a year in the United States, or about $4,300 from every household. Obviously such a huge tax hit would fundamentally change the American... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2441173 Thu, 28 May 2009 17:07:21 +0100 2441173 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2442121&cid=t_133425_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2FOjLwzbhn3DQ%2F Games for Health and SharpBrains have partnered to bring you the first Cognitive Health Track in a Games for Health Conference, June 11-12th in Boston. If you are interested, in attending the conference, you can learn more and register Here. To get a 15% off registration fees ($379), you can use discount code: sharp09, when you register Here. --- Cognitive Health Track, Powered by SharpBrains Thursday, June 11th 10.20 (50m) Bird's Eye View of Cognitive Health Innovation Speaker(s): Alvaro Fernandez, SharpBrains Scientific, technological and demographic trends have converged to create a new $265m market in the US alone: serious games, software and online applications that can help people of all ages assess and train cognitive abilities. Alvaro Fernandez will provide a Bird’s Eye View of t... SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2442121 Mon, 25 May 2009 20:17:12 +0100 2442121 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2424033&cid=t_133425_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F3dH6-XcTItA%2F Over at Salon, Michael Lind takes me to task for raising the alarm about the latest Social Security Trustees report showing that a) Social Security’s insolvency date is growing closer, and b) the system’s unfunded liabilities have increased dramatically since last year’s report. Like most of those who resist having an honest debate about Social security’s finances, Lind relies on a combination of economic flim-flam and political sophistry to obscure the true problem. For example, Lind points out that when I quote the Trustee’s assertion that the system’s unfunded liabilities currently top $17.5 trillion, that “assumes there are no changes made between now and eternity.” Well, duh! All estimates of US budget deficits assume that spending won’t be cut or taxes raised enough... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2424033 Tue, 19 May 2009 15:26:17 +0100 2424033 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2415553&cid=t_133425_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2FKagBc3V3o3w%2F This is a press release that went through the wire earlier today. If you are interested, in attending the conference, you can learn more and register Here Note that below you can find 5 out of the 12 sessions - we will announce the full track tomorrow. To get a 15% off registration fees, you can use discount code: sharp09, when you register. --- The Games for Health Project, organizers of the 5th Annual Games for Health Conference, today announced its first Cognitive Health Track powered by SharpBrains, a leading market research company focused on the brain fitness and the cognitive health market. The Cognitive Health track builds upon previous year's sampling of sessions looking at cognitive health and fitness, expanding to a full two-day track at The Games for Health Conference, June 11-... SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2415553 Tue, 19 May 2009 00:43:46 +0100 2415553 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2302555&cid=t_133425_165_f&fid=36770&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmetaot.com%2Fblog%2Fyoga-and-stroke-0 Hello, As a Masters of Occupational Therapy student, I am undertaking a project exploring benefits and application of Yoga for post stroke clients. There is lot of research supporting the benefits of applying Yoga for various disabilities but there seems to be lack of literature on how to adapt Yoga for post stroke clients. I wish to evoke a discussion on how yoga is being adapted and applied with stroke clients and with what therapeutic gains. I invite your participation in the discussion about Yoga and stroke at my blogsite, http://strokeofyoga.blogspot.com/. What is likely to emerge out of this is a real-time, practice-based information on the topic. So, please come and share your experiences, ideas, and suggestions about the topic and join in an open & healthy discussion with othe... meta-ot blogs blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2302555 Mon, 06 Apr 2009 01:59:57 +0100 2302555 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2259392&cid=t_133425_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2F9WOt6UhIGBg%2F Neurofeedback - also known as EEG Biofeedback - is an approach for treating ADHD in which individuals are provided real-time feedback on their brainwave patterns and taught to alter their typical EEG pattern to one that is consistent with a focused, attentive state. This is typically done by collecting EEG data from individuals as they focus on stimuli presented on a computer screen. Their ability to control the stimuli, for example, keeping the smile on a smiley face, is contingent on maintaining the particular EEG state being trained. According to neurofeedback proponents, learning how to do this during training generalizes to real world situations and this results in improved attention and reduced hyperactive/impulsive behavior. Neurofeedback treatment for ADHD has been controversial in... SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2259392 Wed, 11 Mar 2009 17:47:45 +0100 2259392 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2116515&cid=t_133425_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2F517237108%2F How do you know when something is fast moving towards a Gladwellian tipping point? When health insurance companies and public policy makers launch significant initiatives. For example, the government of Ontario recently announced a $10 million investment with Baycrest Research Centre who will partner with MaRS Venture Group to develop and commercialise brain fitness technologies. The investment was matched by an additional $10 million from private sources. Another important development was the $18 million agreement between the Australian-based Brain Resource Company (ASX:BRC) and OptumHealth in the US. This will allow for the provision of web-based cognitive assessments as part of a clinician’s decision support systems. These are some initiatives covered in a webinar Top Ten Cognitive Fi... SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2116515 Tue, 20 Jan 2009 03:32:32 +0100 2116515 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2096156&cid=t_133425_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2F508550112%2F My apologies for not having blogged in a few days. I landed back in San Francisco today after speaking and participating in a very stimulating event put together by the Arizona State University's Adaptive Neural Systems Center with funding from the National Science Foundation. The 2-day symposium was titled Co-Adaptive Learning: Adaptive Technology for the Aging (link opens a PDF with the agenda), featured impressive speakers and a highly qualified audience, and covered a wide array of current and future healthcare and aging applications of neuroscience. The one aspect that was very meaningful for me to observe how often we discussed cognitive abilities, cognitive deficits, cognitive assessments, cognitive enhancement tools (both invasive and non-invasive) in a variety of healthy aging and... SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2096156 Sun, 11 Jan 2009 03:00:40 +0100 2096156 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1806780&cid=t_133425_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2F395591792%2F Welcome to the September 17th edition of the Carnival of Human Resources, the virtual gathering, every other week, of bloggers focused on Human Resources and Leadership topics. Let's imagine all participants in a conference room, conducting a lively Q&A brown-bag lunch discussion. Q: Can you teach Leadership in a classroom? - Wally: Not really. Neither the person who aspires to become a leader nor HR departments should see leadership development as an activity to be outsourced to a classroom setting. Leadership is a lifelong apprentice trade, led by the learner himself/ herself. The most HR departments can do is to architect the right set of experiences to enable/ accelerate that development. Q: Can you teach Social Intelligence in a classroom? - Jon: According to a recent Harvard Bus... SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1806780 Thu, 18 Sep 2008 03:35:56 +0100 1806780 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1672160&cid=t_133425_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2F351742865%2F Here you are have the twice-a-month newsletter with our most popular blog posts. Please remember that you can subscribe to receive this Newsletter by email, simply by submitting your email at the top of this page. News and Events Brain Health Promotion by the American Society on Aging: You may be interested in the excellent agenda the American Society on Aging has put together for health professionals, from September 2-5th in San Francisco, devoting a full day to Brain Health. Alvaro will participate in 3 of the sessions, including giving a keynote on the Future of Brain Health. Can Google Kill Neurons and Rewire Your Whole Brain?: The Atlantic Monthly published an article titled Is Google Making Us Stupid, which basically blamed Google for literally rewiring our brains into more stupid b... SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1672160 Thu, 31 Jul 2008 17:25:42 +0100 1672160 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1643031&cid=t_133425_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2F341474581%2F Welcome to Encephalon´s 50th edition, where you will find another superb collection of blog posts on all things Brain and Mind. Enjoy these contributions: Science & Technology Mind Hacks reports that Facebook ate my psychiatrist. We can learn about the benefits of social networking sites like Facebook, bringing great perspective to recent and misguided media speculation (fuelled by a recent talk at the Royal College of Psychiatrists). Vaughan, will you please report on the benefits of participating (and, better, hosting) Encephalon?. Dungeons And Dragons - Or Mazes And Monsters?: PodBlack Cat offers a thought-provoking review of the therapy (including self-therapy) applications of role-playing games such as the classic Dungeons And Dragons and the more recent massively multiplay... SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1643031 Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:05:26 +0100 1643031 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1517132&cid=t_133425_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2F310925704%2F This study was conducted with 36 6-13-year-old children in Israel who were diagnosed with ADHD. Results from this study were published last year in Child Neurospsychology [Shalev, Tsal, & Mevorach (2007). Computerized progressive attentional training: Effective direct intervention for children with ADHD. Child Neuropsychology, 13, 382-388.] Participants were randomly assigned to receive 8 weeks of computerized attention training (one hour sessions two times per week) or to a control group. The basic premise of computerized attention training is simple: the program requires children to attend to a variety of computer exercises and to make different responses depending on the stimuli presented. For example, a particularly simple task would require the child to press the space bar each t... SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1517132 Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:50:08 +0100 1517132 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1481146&cid=t_133425_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2F301607877%2F In conclusion, it looks like one can use training to boost one’s fluid intelligence," says Dr. Pascale Michelon, based on a recent study. Education and Training Try Thinking and Learning Without Working Memory: Quick! Can you recite backwards the 7 digits of your phone number? Bill Klemm answers some key questions on thinking and working memory, in one of the most insightful articles on the subject we have seen. Health and Wellness Manage Stress for Your Brain Health: Insightful essay on stress management and brain health written by Landon, as part of one of our student essay contests. Study: Meditation Against ADHD: In order to fight attention deficits...does it make sense to develop the "mental muscles" to pay attention? Take a quick look at the topic, posted at th... SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1481146 Sat, 31 May 2008 02:01:22 +0100 1481146 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1365102&cid=t_133425_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2F268131761%2F This study challenges the theory that depression and dementia are caused by another factor. It therefore adds weight to, but does not prove, the theory that depression is a risk factor for dementia. However, this study has shortcomings, and further research that is free of these should provide a clearer picture. Until more is known, depression sufferers should not be overly worried that they will develop dementia." Comment: I guess that last sentence offers good news...   aging brain, Alzheimers Association, Alzheimers Tests, baby boomers, Brain games, Brain Training, brain training game, Casual Games, cognitive ability, cognitive deficits, Cognitive tests, Depression and Alzheimers, executive skills, fit brains, High blood pressure, Humana, lifestyle, Medicaid, Medicare, memory cl... SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1365102 Fri, 11 Apr 2008 04:31:36 +0100 1365102 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1305875&cid=t_133425_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2F252194117%2F A few very interesting New York Times articles over the last couple of days, plus a great opportunity for clinicians and researchers in Latin America. - Well: When a Brain Scientist Suffers a Stroke "Dr. Taylor recounts the details of her stroke and the amazing insights she gained from it in a riveting 18-minute video of her speech at the Technology, Entertainment, Design Conference in Monterey, Calif., last month." - Cases Without Borders: Psychotherapy for All: An Experiment "The clinic is at the forefront of a program that has the potential to transform mental health treatment in the developing world. Instead of doctors, the program trains laypeople to identify and treat depression and anxiety and sends them to six community health clinics in Goa, in western India."... SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1305875 Sun, 16 Mar 2008 01:03:11 +0100 1305875 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1295082&cid=t_133425_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2F249622607%2F After many months of work (and we hope many new neurons and stronger synapses in our brains), we have just released our inaugural report on the emerging Brain Fitness Software Market, the first to define the brain fitness software market and analyze the size and trends of its four customer segments. We estimate the size of the US brain fitness software market at $225M in2007, up from $100m in 2005 (50% CAGR). The two segments that fueled the market growth: consumers (grew from $5m to $80m, 300% CAGR) and healthcare & insurance providers (grew from $36m to $65m, 35% CAGR). Highlights from The State of the Brain Fitness Software Market 2008 report include: 1) 2007 was a seminal year for the US Brain Fitness software market, which reached $225 million in revenues – up from an estimated... SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1295082 Tue, 11 Mar 2008 17:36:07 +0100 1295082 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1193029&cid=t_133425_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2F226932524%2F As we have been doing for the last 6 months, here you are have the Monthly Digest of our Most Popular Blog Posts. You can consider it your monthly Brain Fitness/ Training Newsletter. (Also, remember that you can subscribe to receive our blog RSS feed, or to our monthly newsletter at the top of this page if you want to receive this Monthly Digest by email).   Let me first introduce our new roster of Expert Contributors, highlighting first an article by Duke University's Dr. David Rabiner, a leading authority on attention deficits and author of the Attention Research Update newsletter, on the "promising, yet unproven" value of neurofeedback for attention deficits: How Strong is the Research Support for Neurofeedback.  Two other great articles by our Expert Contributors th... SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1193029 Fri, 01 Feb 2008 02:17:42 +0100 1193029 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1087898&cid=t_133425_122_f&fid=36582&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FSharpBrains%2F%7E3%2F198708954%2F Reader Theresa Cerulli just forwarded this Letter to the Editor that she had sent to the New York Times and went unpublished. The letter addresses the OpEd mentioned here (pitching physical vs. mental exercise), and refers to the Cogmed working memory training program, whose results have been studied in multiple papers published in top medical and scientific journals. ------------------------------- Dear Editor: I applaud Sandra Aamodt and Sam Wang for throwing some cold water on the current brain fitness craze in their recent New York Times Magazine Opinion Editorial “Exercise on the Brain.” They are correct in labeling the host of “mental fitness” products that target aging baby boomers as “inspired by science — not to be confused with actually proven by science.” For the ... SharpBrains blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1087898 Tue, 11 Dec 2007 17:09:05 +0100 1087898 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=747677&cid=t_133425_133_f&fid=35129&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwhitterer-autism.blogspot.com%2F2007%2F07%2Fsome-people-are-just-never-happy.html And of course I would be one of them! Some people are under the misapprehension that I am an unnaturally happy person and have no complaints. [translation = in the realms of autism at least] Such people, I would have you know, are quite wrong. Generally speaking, I usually feel much better if I am permitted a jolly good moan. It can be cathartic to just write things down that bother you. I am given to understand by my psychobabble pals, that the act of crumpling up the paper and burning it, funereal style, also helps put an end to the process. [translation = closure]You see whilst both my boys are autistic, each 'type' of autism that they have, differs from the other, which is very tiresome for a parent with a small brain. If that wasn’t enough to contend with, they also have speech dela... Whitterer on Autism blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=747677 Fri, 20 Jul 2007 18:27:00 +0100 747677