Don't confuse greed with myopia. Forgoing greater profits in the long run in exchange for smaller short run profits is not a fault of greed, but of myopic decision making. The truly greedy person would have left the $10 dollar a barrel oil in the ground and pumped out the $70 dollar a barrel oil years later.

The point was that the decision to extract or not extract a barrell is a dynamic one. Suppose from our perspective the optimal profit maximizing strategy for the Mexican field was to NOT employ short-run techniques that harm the long term prospects of extraction. This optimal long-run strategy would be chosen by a greedy individual, because it maximizes profits. The fact that the Mexican field DID employ damaging techniques that increased short-run yields at the cost of long-run profits is a result of myopic decision making, not greed, because the greedy individual should have taken the long-run extraction path.

Just pointing out that there are dynamic considerations of extraction to take into account, and attributing short-run maximization to greed is misplaced.

Agreed, and I apologize for the poorly-worded first post. And you are right to be skeptical about the ability of a privately-managed firm (especially in politically unstable countries) to do much better. My guess is that with a threat of nationalization looming overhead, a private firm may have extracted even faster and with more damaging techniques. Leaving a barrel in the ground when prices are low doesn't do you much good if the oil field won't be yours in 10 years.

Is a % uptick in home ownership due to 'cheap' housing money worth a recession when the increased risk shudders through the economy? While it is important to acknowledge the upside of cheap loans (good borrowers get houses for cheaper), one should also be concerned about the downside as well. Dismissing those concerned about the ramifications of risky lending on such a large scale as anti-poor "credit snobs" is really quite silly.

"But underlying that dynamic lurks an implicit critique of globalization. The more a country buys into the global economy, the more it loosens up controls over capital flows and boosts trading activity, the more likely it is to take a hit when the U.S. stumbles."

It also means that when the US market booms, those interrelated economies also boom ("find that stronger trade linkages lead to increased synchronization of business cycles across countries"). That doesn't seem like a critique, just an obvious consequence of integrating more markets. The busts hurt, the booms help, so unless busts hurt more than the booms help, I fail to see how this is a critique...

If definitive proof emerged that GMO's were safe for human consumption, I don't think many environmentalists would be okay with that, because as far as I can tell, the safety aspect is a small part of opposition to GMO's. Many environmentalists (myself included) have strong preferences for 'the way things were' without human impact. Just think of the root of the word 'conservation'. I personally think much of the Anti-GMO furor is a bit too 1. Luddite and 2. tinged with anti-capitalist sentiment for my tastes, but scientific consensus declaring GMO's safe isn't going to have any impact on those two forces and preferences.

So comparing environmentalists reaction to consensus on Global Warming and consensus on GMO safety seems more than a little (genetically-modified) apples and oranges.

When I read the Fairbanks post, I thought she was criticizing it for the same reasons that GG is criticizing it, namely that something ridiculous like a haircut shows up on CNN's top headlines. Perhaps Fairbanks deserves a slap on the wrist for her cluelessness in perpetuating the "some people seem to think," but that seems a 2nd or 3rd order offense compared to the Drudge/MSM garbage.

And the Choitner post is countered 1.5 hours later by Brad Plumer who doesn't see anything wrong with Obama's speech. Choitner's primary offense seems to be citing the blurbs from Politico, as opposed to the actual speech. Then again, perhaps Choitner honestly didn't like the speech even in it's entirety and felt the Politico blurb captured his dislike. I found his post less offensive than Kaus', who extrapolates from the few lines in the Politico to deductions about Obama's "mindset."

After re-reading it, I think you're correct. I had originally taken "cringe-worthy" as relating to the fact that CNN put the story at the top, but I think that was just projection on my part. I think you're right that she feels the haircuts themselves are "cringe-worthy." One worries for the epileptic seizures Fairbanks must go through when she reads headlines about things like carbombs in Iraq and the twisted policies that got us mired there.

He sets the bar nowhere, which is why we're pleasantly (and sadly) surprised when someone actually does say "whoa, wait a minute." It is unclear why Comey waited as long as he did, but I give him credit for for his actions in 2004. He was confirmed as Deputy in December 2003, and the showdown occurred in March 2004, so it's possible he cried BS the first chance he got to really review the program (the first time would have been ~Jan 25 if they were on 45 day review cycles, so it's hard to say if Comey would have reviewed it then).

Clearly Comey sees a line to be drawn, and he draws it more to the right than the average Saloneer, but that's not really surprising for a political appointee from a Republican president. I wouldn't expect him to be a liberal/progressive. That said, it's clear that the White House has drummed out anyone in the Justice Department who thinks a line needs to be drawn anywhere. In the cage match between John Yoo and the Constitution, Yoo has clearly won hands down with the Bush Administration

Pretty tame. I was expecting full-blown boobage and 3 inch skirts. Definite lack of taste in some cases, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't make someone a whore...