The whole discussion of executive compensation seems, like so many discussions these days, to have gone a bit off the rails.  The point is not whether an executive is being paid X number of dollars or whether the figure X is Y times the wage of the average worker within the firm, though the second question here is fodder for a discussion all its own.  The real crux of the issue is moral hazard.

I know, your first thought is ALWAYS. Bear with me, however, as I examine the edge cases. What qualifies as an edge case will vary from person to person, I imagine.

Starting with the most extreme case that is so extreme it's hard to imagine it being labeled as discrimination, consider our dating choices. Most of us (literally) discriminate on the basis of sex in those conditions, and almost no one would consider it wrong.

The AP just broke a story that Bill Sparkman, a 51 year-old U.S. Census worker, has been found hanged in Kentucky, apparently with the word "fed" written on his chest.  Door-to-door operations have been suspended in Clay County, where the body was found.  The FBI is investigating.

A question that's been eating at me for a while:

Why do libertarians object to illegal immigrants?

Perhaps there are libertarians who do not, who extend their principles to encompass newcomers and their liberty to live and work where they please, without government interference. But my experience of libertarian pundits and of my own libertarian friends is that generally, they do not. The most anti-big-government libertarian of my friends also takes it as a given that illegal immigrants are a social ill.

WASHINGTON - The Health Insurance Corporate Person CIGNA has accepted the position of "Health Care Reform Czar," White House officials have confirmed. The Corporate Person will take over the job as the Obama Administration gets ready for its final push on health care reform.

What happens when 300 million people, selected by fate to live together in one nation, stop being polite and start being real?

Maybe it's something in the air.  Or the water.  Or my Harvey Wallbanger.  Whatever the case, there's no denying that Americans have been letting it all hang out lately.

A quick (and true) parable from history: in 1189, Richard the Lion-Hearted decided that no Jews would be allowed at his coronation ceremony. When some leading London Jews showed up at the door, they were turned away, and when the gathered crowd saw this they concluded that the new King was solidly anti-Semitic and that the best way to celebrate would be to murder as many Jews as possible. Mobs killed almost sixty people and set the city's Jewish ghetto, the Jewry, on fire.

Megan McArdle finds it funny that Nancy Pelosi is worried about political violence. I'm not sure which element tickles McArdle's funny bone. Maybe it's Pelosi's request that public officials speak responsibly. Maybe it's Pelosi's embarrassing and uncool emotional sincerity. Perhaps it's that Pelosi is soooo amazingly old that she actually remembers the Mayor of San Francisco's thigh-slappingly funny murder.

You've probably heard by now of the videos being promoted by Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com and Fox News that purport to show Acorn employees engaging in some rather unethical behavior.  I don't know to what extent the videos have been edited, because they have clearly been edited, but there certainly seems to be some rotten behavior on display.  The SF chronicle has reported that that these employees have already been fired, although the sa

One of the recurrent themes that contribute to right-wing paranoia is the fantasy that white people suffer from discrimination in Obama's America. This conceit erupted on the talk shows during the Sotomayor hearings and after Henry Louis Gates' arrest, when Rush Limbaugh said, "President Obama is black, and I think he's got a chip on his shoulder," and Glenn Beck exclaimed that Obama "has a deep seated hatred for white people."

Many thanks to the dagblog gang for inviting me to guest-blog here. I'm excited to join the dagblog membership, and hope to make a useful contribution if I can. Anyway, without further ado, here's my first shot:

SOUTH CAROLINA - Desperately trying to distance itself from the outlandish behavior of its Republican politicians, the State Tourism Board has announced an aggressive new campaign to encourage tourism.

“It was time to take the focus off the Republicans and on the state,” said Tourism Board Chairman Tim Tapper. “And we’re willing to go to any lengths to do that.”

Labor unions have been working on resurrecting a controversial bill in an eleventh hour maneuver in Sacramento over the weekend.

Assembly Bill 155 (Mendoza) would authorize the California Debt and Investment Advisory Commission (CDIAC) as a filter for municipalities to go through before filing for bankruptcy, originally created to provide information and technical assistance about debt issuance to public agencies and other public finance professionals.