J. Bradford DeLong's Blog, page 2303

David Weigel Has Stockholm Syndrome...

David Weigel defends Rand Paul:

Right Now: Defending Rand Paul, Part II: I first grappled with it in a 2008 story about racist passages in Ron Paul's newsletters.... But there's no comparison between the 2008 newsletter story and this story. That was about explicitly racist populism. This is about the libertarian dream of a colorblind society, faithful to the Constitution, with as little regulation of business as possible. I'm sticking up for Rand Paul here.... How does Paul's...

Another Reason Rand Paul Is Hiding from Meet the Press This Weekend

Joan Walsh:

Twitter / Joan Walsh: Honestly, what Rand Paul s ...: Honestly, what Rand Paul said about the miners who died in his own state is more shocking than his views on civil rights.

Rand Paul:

: What I don’t like from the president’s administration is this sort of, you know, “I’ll put my boot heel on the throat of BP.” I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business. I’ve heard nothing from BP about not paying for the spill. And I think it’s...

Who Were the Huns and How Could They Shatter an Empire That Had Dominated Western Europe for 700 Years?

Tyler Cowen writes:

Marginal Revolution: Books in my pile: Peter Heather, Empires and Barbarians The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe; good book but I've read too much on this topic lately...

I would urge him to finish it and write about it. Peter Heather's earlier book, The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians (New York: Oxford, 2006) is I think best in its class--certainly it for the first time made me see not what the Huns were and how they...

Dave Weigel on Signs of a Brain in the Press Corps...

Weigel:

Twitter / daveweigel: So was this the week we st ...: So was this the week we stopped being dazzled by tea parties and started asking what they believe? Took a while.

The Rise of Margaret Thatcher: Background

The point of a strike was always to convince the decision makers and the residual claimants to the cash that they were better off paying you what you asked for rather than holding out until you came back to work--and to do so without convincing the broader civil society that the framework that gave you the power to strike was too much of a bother and an inconvenience to maintain and support.

The British Labour movement in the 1970s seem to have been extremely bad at this. And so Margaret...

They Want Their Deficit Crisis and They Want It Now

Paul Krugman is bemused:

Crying Fire! Fire! In Noah’s Flood: I’m getting a lot of rage from people who want their deficit-and-inflation crisis, and won’t take no for an answer.... By spring 2009 a sharp division had emerged among economic commentators... many people looked at big budget deficits and the rapid expansion of the monetary base, and saw terrible things happening to interest rates — who will finance all that government borrowing? — and inflation — look at all that money......

Richard Epstein Says That Rand Paul Is Brain-Dead

Byron Tau marshalls the smart libertarians to say: we are really, really not as stupid as Rand Paul is:

Rand Paul's Position on Civil Rights Too Hot Even for Liberatarian Stalwarts:

[Brink Lindsey:]

I think Rand Paul is wrong about the Civil Rights Act. As a general matter, people should be free to deal or not deal with others as they choose. And that means we discriminate against those we choose not to deal with. In marrying one person, we discriminate against...

Greg Sargent Notices What Rand Paul--and Ron Paul, and America's Right Libertarian Caucus--Believes

They believe that, if America were a good society, our tax dollars would be spent to pay police officers to taser and evict peacefully-shopping African-Americans from stores just because the shopkeeper doesn't like their faces. That's what Rand Paul thinks a good society looks like. Deal with it:

Greg Sargent: [Rand:] Paul... cannot bring himself to say -- clearly and unequivocally -- that the Federal government should have the power to prohibit private businesses from discriminating...

Common-Law Duties of Non-Discrimination

John H. Sherry (1972), The Laws of Innkeepers (Cornell):

William Blackstone:

Erwin Rommel and Gerd von Runstedt Liveblog World War II: May 21, 1940:

Generalmajor Erwin Rommel: May 21, 1940:

Very powerful [enemy:] armored forces thrust out of Arras and attacked the advancing 1st Btn. of the 6th Rifle Rgt., inflicting heavy losses.... Out anti-tank guns... far too light to be effective against the heavily-armored British tanks... put out of action by gunfire... overrrun by enemy tanks. Many of our vehicles were burned out. S.S. units close by also had to fall back to the south before the weight of the tank attack. Finally, the...