Philip Greenspun's WeblogA posting every day; an interesting idea every three months...Fooling ourselves with low inflation numbers (again)- June 20, 2008 If you liked my April 23 posting on cooking economic numbers, you&8217;ll like this article by Bill Gross, which concentrates on the inflation numbers alone and this time from the perspective of an investment manager. Gross is a bond fund manager, whose Wikipedia page lists his personal fortune at $1.3 billion. It sounds as though ...http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2008/06/20/fooling-ourselves-with-low-inflation-numbers... The Massachusetts governor is shopping for a private jet- June 14, 2008 Deval Patrick has been in the headlines for misuse of State Police helicopters for personal transportation. He has also been in the news lately for trying to impose a sales tax on aircraft used by his subjects. I learned today that Patrick has been shopping for a private jet to be paid for by the ...http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2008/06/14/the-massachusetts-governor-is-shopping-for-a... Eclipse in the news again- June 13, 2008 Eclipse Aviation, the company that brought Microsoft ambition to the very light jet market, is in the news again. Apparently the engines on a new Eclipse got stuck at full throttle and the pilots were lucky to get it back on the ground in one piece. Note that Eclipse, contrary to the New York Times ...http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2008/06/12/eclipse-in-the-news-again/ iPhone2 will finally do the stuff that I wanted back in the 1990s- June 10, 2008 Back in the 1990s I used to wonder, often in public forums, why the phone companies didn&8217;t offer location-based services such as were available in Japan. For example, I thought that it would be nice for a phone to show a traveler nearby available hotel rooms and allow the handset user to book one. ...http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2008/06/09/iphone2-will-finally-do-the-stuff-that-i-wan... Our energetic legislators- June 4, 2008 Massachusetts State Senator James Marzilli, a Democrat representing Arlington, just north of Cambridge, has been a tireless advocate for increased taxation and spending, notably for higher taxes on corporations, apropos of an earlier posting. He may also have joined Governor Deval Patrick in trying to impose a new sales tax on aircraft in Massachusetts. This ...http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2008/06/04/our-energetic-legislators/ Eclipse catching up to Cessna- June 3, 2008 &8230; in price. Eclipse announced last week that they are raising the price of their original model from $1.65M to $2.15M June 2008 dollars (aero-news.net story). A Cessna Mustang ordered today would deliver in mid-2011 at a fixed $3.14M (maybe $2.5M in today&8217;s dollars the way that inflation is going). The Mustang ...http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2008/06/02/eclipse-catching-up-to-cessna/ Wile E. Coyote tax and tariff policy- June 2, 2008 Here&8217;s a piece from New Yorker about how restricting trade to help American workers ends up hurting the poorest Americans: &8220;The Free Trade Paradox&8221; (May 26, 2008). The point is that keeping imported calculators (for example) out of the U.S. would be great for a handful of guys who work in a calculator ...http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2008/06/02/wile-e-coyote-tax-and-tariff-policy/ |