Indiana’s Retirement Fund: A Sucker Bet?
by PHIL TROYER, J.D. Many years ago, I traveled to Las Vegas to attend a wedding. While there, I struck up a conversation with a young man who worked at the hotel in which we were staying. “Do you gamble much?” I asked. “No,” he replied. “I used to, but then I looked around at Read the full article…
The Outstater: Conventions and Why Words Matter
As an old editor I concede that you can be too picayunish about words. It no longer makes any difference whether you write auto or motorcar, to pick an example from my vintage stylebook. But some words (liberty, God, Jerusalem, heroism, compassion) matter to some more than others. When they lose their meaning, people lose parts of themselves. Dr. Read the full article…
Neal: A Two-Century Tradition of Negative Attacks
For release Aug. 29 and thereafter (660 words) by Andrea Neal Don’t blame Mitt Romney and Barack Obama for the ugly tone of the 2012 presidential race. Blame John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. They started it. The Election of 1800 was the first time candidates campaigned on partisan platforms, and it’s been that way ever Read the full article…
The Outstater: ‘Canute, a Man for Our Times’
We all know there’s been a shift in political posture from vision to reality. Hard times do that. The question, though, is whether your councilman or legislator will make the turn. Most sitting Hoosier politicians, Republican or Democrat, were elected on “the vision thing,” as George H. Bush once called it. Now they’re trying mightily Read the full article…
Bohanon: ‘Kelo in My Backyard’
by Cecil Bohanon, Ph.D. Ball State University (full disclosure: my employer) is seeking to acquire property adjacent to campus in order to build facilities that will “house 50 dorm rooms, 100 hotel rooms, a series of conference rooms, a student-run retail area and two restaurants.” The expected cost of the project is around $25 million. Read the full article…
Inflation Worries? You Can’t Trust the CPI
by MARYANN O. KEATING, PH.D. There is no such thing as a perfect price index. Perfection in price indices requires that the prices of all products increase by the same percentage and that product quality plus the relative amounts of each product category remain constant. Nevertheless, the Consumer Price Index (CPI), generated by the Bureau Read the full article…
