Prof. Bainbridge doesn’t like much of what he hears (Mar. 27).
Chronicling the high cost of our legal system
Overlawyered
Point of Law- Around the web, October 12In multiple cases, U.S. Supreme Court being asked to intervene in West Virginia state courts [Liptak, NYT] Employers buy big legal headaches when they ask for specifics from workers who call in sick. Better just to wave those intermittent...Walter Olson
- Campaign civility, enforced by law?The press has been full of chatter this week about the supposedly unprecedented vehemence of campaign rhetoric on the Republican side of the presidential contest -- a charge that, as my colleague John Leo has noted, may be a trifle...Walter Olson
- Parloff on Russia v. Bank of New York MellonOver the past couple of years I've repeatedly expressed fascination (here, here, here, here, and here) with the lawsuit in a Moscow commercial court in which the government of Russia is invoking the RICO law -- America's RICO law, that...Walter Olson
- Around the web, October 1025 questions you can't ask at job interviews, such as "Can you work weekends?" and "What relative should we notify in case of emergency?" [HR Daily Advisor via Ohio Employment Law Blog] "California already ranks 48th in state business...Walter Olson
- Demonization of deregulationI'm quoted on the subject, as is co-blogger Ted Frank, in this new piece by Joseph Lawler for the American Spectator. I should add that I'm not trying to speak to the ultimate merits of either specific proposal discussed (a...Walter Olson
- Around the web, October 12
- Volokh
- Jews and Abortion:My father tells me that he has quite a few Jewish friends in their 60s and 70s who tell him that they would vote for McCain over Obama but for the...David Bernstein
- Overnight Stock Index Futures Up Sharply Early Sunday Evening.Several times last week, overnight Dow Jones stock index futures were up 100-200 points, only to collapse the next day, when the US markets actually opened, finishing down substantially....Jim Lindgren
- Palin Must Keep Private E-Mails:An Alaska judge has issued an order requiring Gov. Palin to preserve e-mails from private e-mail accounts (including the one that was hacked) which she used to conduct state business....Jonathan Adler
- 20 Reasons Why You’re Not Rich.Over at the Street.com, Jeffrey Strain has added 10 more reasons why you’re not rich to a list he published last year. Here were the 10 original reasons:...Jim Lindgren
- The Rise of the Machines:A bit over-the-top, but Richard Dooling's essay in today's NY Times ("The Rise of the Machines") has some ring of truth to it, to my eyes. It blames the financial...David Post
- Jews and Abortion:
I don’t recall Prof. Bainbridge warning of the instability in the securitized mortgage business: Defaults were presumed to be independent with respects to regions, and they weren’t. Thus his analysis of Obama’s speech should be taken with a grain of salt.
I once tried to explain why Social security can not be privatized to a very intelligent woman programmer. She just couldn’t get it although it was simply that the reserves for such a system would equal or exceed our national wealth, a rather simple concept. For some reason financial matters are very difficult to most. President Clinton used to say things about the economy that were both conventional wisdom and foolish at the same time. The reason I am so fond of President Clinton is that he listened to actual experts and acted appropriately (NAFTA comes to mind.) We had good times even with the dot com bust.
All three of the contenders for President, including Senator Obama, also say things about the economy that are both conventional wisdom and foolish at the same time. To me Senator Obama is the brightest of the three. He is mystified that anybody would not see that OJ was proved guilty beyond all doubt, and he explained in 2002 why the attack on Iraq would be wrong. He would be able to understand his advisors and not have to rely on his gut alone.
I have high hopes for Senator Obama, and I actually dread the other two.