Commentaries

from Rolfe Winkler:

Evening Links 12-23

Rolfe Winkler

Dec 23, 2009 21:36 UTC

(Reader note 1: posting will be light through the weekend....taking a few days off)

(Reader note 2: Just saw Avatar, the IMAX 3D version. I highly recommend it.)

Food stamps altering how retailers do business (Maestri/Baertlein, Reuters) "At 11 p.m. on the last day of the month, shoppers flock to the nearest Walmart. They load their carts with food and household items and wait for the midnight hour. That's when food stamp credits are loaded on their electronic benefits transfer cards."

The Protocol Society (Brooks, NYT) "When the economy was about stuff, economics resembled physics. When it’s about ideas, economics comes to resemble psychology."

Treasury to seek easing of bailout fund rules (Somerville, Reuters)

One cheer for Barney Frank (WSJ editorial) WSJ editorials tend not to be very useful, but I thought the last line of this one was notable: "Perhaps the House and Senate should simply ... start over with a new mission for [financial] regulatory reform: break up the too big to fail racket." More evidence that all sides of the political spectrum agree on this. I wonder how they would propose we do it.