See, this is why severe austerity isn't usually the best idea. And why people were so freaked out about the fiscal cliff, and probably will be again in 2 months or so.

Still, you gotta cut spending somehow otherwise the government just gets really bloated. Tough situation.

Oof. It looks about as massive as those original xbox controllers and somehow more unwieldy. Pass.

Why?

"A limited-run "Golden Token" Monopoly ($17.99) arrives in Target stores exclusively in mid-February, and it will be the last edition to have all of the classic tokens and the only set to have all five of the potential new pieces as well."

Oh.

"Externalities result from authority. Authority enables one actor to maximize her personal utility, while making socially suboptimal choices, by imposing the negative consequences of her choices on other actors with less authority."

Sure, but that's why we give power to the people in some respects. Policy-makers, executive leaders, and even judges are elected in the US. What really hurts us isn't authority, but a lack of transparency on its part.

"Those in authority cannot afford to do the most efficient thing — stop interfering with the judgments of those who actually know what they’re doing — because they know their interests are diametrically opposed to ours."

And who, exactly, 'actually knows what they're doing'? Yeah I'd like the nanny state to stay out of my life, but I sure as heck don't think I know what I'm doing. I'm sorry, but this just sounds like so much countercultural whinging.

So he says that 'happiness' doesn't really apply to human life because of our ever-present empathy for the suffering of others. Does that mean he's saying divinity is also empathetic? I dunno, whenever I try to think about this sort of thing I default to one of Terry Pratchett's quotes: "If there is a God, it is up to each of us to be his moral superior."

Baruch Spinoza also has something interesting to say on the subject; he believed in Pantheism, that God exists in everything as the physical laws that run the universe and so everything that happens is according to its will. Anyways, good article!