http://bit.ly/ajqEhq Peter Klein on the BP oil spill. 1) Liability caps may have led to moral hazard. 2) Principal-agent problem arises with leasing (the drilling platform). 3) A flatter, decentralized corporate structure (BP's trend) may lead to faster response times and flexibility, but also to coordination failure and moral hazard.

Are stock buybacks a form of legal insider trading and shouldn't they indicate the stock will achieve a superior return? No: http://bit.ly/caJSyc.

Can you film police while they are "doing their jobs"? http://bit.ly/cZqXj2.

Hayek interviewed by top economists, from Universidad Francisco Marroquin: http://bit.ly/9vvN4O.

According to this, you can fight the tax assessment on your home. Many counties try to hold the assessment stable, although values may have dropped: http://bit.ly/9uGZ8U.

GSK did an "under-the-radar" study to look into the cardiovascular risk of Avandia, then hid the study results: http://bit.ly/bWv3FI.

Ghostwritten article by GSK on Avandia, with Stephen Haffner as lead: http://bit.ly/auXGRz.

FDA Avandia reviewer is excluded from FDA Avandia discussions: http://bit.ly/d42D1l.

Jeffrey Pfeffer's new article "Power Play," published in HBR, is available here: http://bit.ly/dlmxIK.

International Affairs: http://ping.fm/cV5QD This is great.

Learn foreign languages for free: http://bit.ly/aFtdKa.

The films of Andrei Tarkovsky (e.g., Solaris) are available online: http://ping.fm/SP39b

It's hard to overestimate the damage GSK has done to itself. They employ an academic hit man, hide negative data, ban employees from pharma gossip sites, improperly obtain articles before publication, and more. Read about it here: http://bit.ly/bT0eWn.

Toyota and Tesla might reopen the NUMMI plant in Fremont, California: http://bit.ly/9bJGlN.

Toyota makes threats to SIU after its professor has a theory for the acceleration accidents. http://bit.ly/ah6kkG. I smell cover-up.

From Volokh Conspiracy: The current estate tax situation is a perverse incentive. People with large estates benefit by dying before the year is out: http://bit.ly/dCzwUb.

Michael Shedlock on Seattle's pension plan problems: http://bit.ly/9Sb761. Its problems are related to defined benefit plans.

Free downloads of articles at Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy: http://ping.fm/08LRe From the Federalist Society. HT: Frankenblog.

She took a chance on herself. Now work is fun: http://nyti.ms/ddVgjW.

Carpe Diem gives an example of the U-Haul index: http://bit.ly/bq9u9c.

Quicker to read books compared to ebooks: http://bit.ly/d0X7g3. HT: naked capitalism.

Black hole blows gas bubble. Black holes gain energy and then eject energy, usually as X-rays. http://bit.ly/a2d0VG. HT: naked capitalism.

Free online courses: http://ping.fm/GMbOB

GPO deals don't consider possibility of innovations: http://bit.ly/cmUKwY.

Woman nearly loses health insurance over one cent shortfall: http://ping.fm/XVkK5

Swatch's Nicolas Hayek has died: http://bit.ly/dx6XOw.

Dendreon's prostate cancer vaccine will cost $93,000 per patient per year! http://bit.ly/9FtDLI. That's got to be a joke.

Update on Pfizer's Trovan trial: http://bit.ly/bHuUin. It would have been better to have done the study right in the 1st place...

Streisand effect? I hope so.

Quackwatch (http://ping.fm/lc7Rt) has received a "cease and desist" letter from Algis Augustine (http://ping.fm/E98oJ14Legal/dd_suit.html), representing the "licensed CLIA laboratory" Doctor's Data. Doctor's Data is the lab that doctors doing chelation therapy use for determining heavy metal toxicity. The more chelation these guys do, the better, so they will find the lab that finds the highest levels of heavy metals (http://ping.fm/z1F2a01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Tests/urine_toxic.html). CLIA licensing is obviously not as stringent as I thought. Perhaps this is another example of government regulatory failure.

Quackwatch, a valuable website, could use any help you can give it. There is only one Quackwatch, but there is a need for many more.

Debreu's book Theory of Value can be downloaded at no charge here: http://bit.ly/d3O9Vx. HT:Falkenblog.

Good news! The Dow is down! The dividend yield of the Dow is now more than the T-bond yield: http://bit.ly/bZyYfO.

States starting to cut back on pensions for state employees: http://bit.ly/ao2dyj. For the auto industry, unions insisted on defined benefit plans. That may have been a mistake. I wonder if a person could auction their pension on e-bay???