Links And A Nice Song For Sunday, December the 23rd

I've always thought this was a very nice song; I hope you're all opening your hearts to your loved ones this Christmas.

-Noah Smith explains how risky mortgages didn't cause the financial crisis. Mispriced risky mortgages caused the financial crisis.

-Andrew Potter has a neat piece on naive and cynical views on politics.

-"M.S." makes the case for cynicism, at least about the relationship between Congress and the public.

-Jonathan Bernstein, my favorite cynic, explains why term limits are a terrible idea.

-Jeffrey Simpson celebrates the 50th anniversary of medicare in Canada.

Links And A Nice Song For Sunday, December The 2nd

I'm not a huge fan of the production on Angst in My Pants, but this is one of the nicest songs I've ever heard:

-Robert Solow on how Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman lowered the level of debate about economics. Solow is a another good antidote to the idea that big-name economists are all myopic libertarians.

-Andre Picard on B.C.'s success in slowing the spread of HIV by expanding access to antiretrovirals.

-Gerald Caplan excoriates the Conservatives for voting down a bill to reform the Canadian Access to Medicines Regime―again. It was an evil thing to do.

-Barack Obama's opening bid in the fiscal cliff negotiation seems pretty okay to me. As I noted, I expect that the Democrats will probably cave on extending the Bush tax cuts.

-Speaking of austerity and stimulus: this was really cool and arts spending should be on the agenda the next time Canada has to engage in expansionary fiscal policy.

-Ta-Nehisi Coates has been writing some great stuff about Lincoln. He also had a good response to arguments that Jefferson's monstrousness doesn't matter.

Go see Lincoln, and have yourself a nice week.