Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Corporate Legal Personhood in the Kiobel Case

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In Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, the U.S. Supreme Court waded into the murky waters of corporate legal personhood, at least potentially, ...

Prognosis for the Chinese Economy

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At the end of February 2012, the World Bank released its “China 2030” report in Beijing. The bank’s president, Robert Zoellick, said that Ch...
Monday, February 27, 2012

Ailing the E.U.: Unbalanced Federalism and the Euro

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Lest it be thought that the economic safety net for the neediest led some of the E.U. states into excessive public debt toward the end of t...
Sunday, February 26, 2012

Moral Hazard in Mortgages

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“The cherished American ideal of self-reliance has a flip side”[1]  Before getting to the implications, or flip side, I want to fill out wh...
Saturday, February 25, 2012

American Regional English: Vestiges of an Empire

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In 2012, a mere fifty years after the project had begun, the fifth volume of the Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) was finally...
Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Germany’s Wulff Toppled While Wisconsin’s Walker Fights On

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At the beginning of 2012, Wisconsin and Germany were both suffering from the plight of compromised figureheads. In the case of Wisconsin, th...
Tuesday, February 21, 2012

E.U. Presses Italy to Tax Church Businesses

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One of the chief benefits of federalism is the ability of one system of government to check another within the overall federal system. In t...
Monday, February 20, 2012

Sarkozy’s Electoral Campaign in the E.U.: Not for the U.S. Presidency

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On February 15, 2012, France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy formally announced his intent to file as a candidate for the office in what would b...
Friday, February 17, 2012

Gay Marriage in New Jersey

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Just after New Jersey’s legislature passed a law legalizing gay marriage, Gov. Chris Christie followed through on his promise to reject the ...

Democracy and State Governments at the E.U. Level

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In mid-February 2012, Mario Monti of the E.U. state of Italy addressed the European Parliament. In his speech, he advocated increasing the ...
Thursday, February 16, 2012

Sanctity of Contract Breached on Mortgages

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An audit in 2012 by San Francisco county officials of about 400 foreclosures “determined that almost all involved either legal violations or...
Wednesday, February 15, 2012

The Profitable Aristocracy: On the Conditionality of the Managerial Elite

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Downton Abbey , a television series that began in 2011 on PBS’s  Masterpiece Classics , depicts through narrative life in a British manor ...
Monday, February 13, 2012

Russian Private Property: Based on Fairness or Legality?

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In a move to shore up popular support before the presidential election in 2012, Vladimir Putin called for a windfall levy on the dishonest ...
Sunday, February 12, 2012

Distinguishing Entitlements from the Safety Net

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In 2012, Congress lost sight of the fundamental purpose of a safety net, extending it beyond the difference between life and death. By zeroi...
Saturday, February 11, 2012

Obama’s Educational Waivers: Toward the Political Consolidation of an Empire

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A decade after the No Child Left Behind federal law was enacted, “President Obama freed 10 states from some of its crucial provisions.”[1] ...