Fuck Yeah Richard Posner

Moneyball for Judges: The statistics of judicial behavior

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 12:42:57 -0400

Moneyball for Judges: The statistics of judicial behavior:

This is a pretty good overview of some work Justice Posner has been doing with Lee Epstein and William Landes to “provide a comprehensive, numbers-filled assessment of judicial voting patterns.” It’s a good read, especially the bit where they compare and contrast voting patterns in the Supreme Court to the District Courts. A related work would be Posner’s 2005 Harvard Law Review article “A Political Court.”

"Our political system is pervasively corrupt due to our Supreme Court taking away..."

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 11:45:34 -0400

“Our political system is pervasively corrupt due to our Supreme Court taking away campaign-contribution restrictions on the basis of the First Amendment.”

- Richard Posner is the most influential conservative judge outside the Supreme Court. He is a renowned member of the Chicago-based Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. He is not only the nation’s most prolific jurist-academic, he is seen by some as the most influential judge outside of the nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court. Yet, he is against Citizens United v. FEC which he considered it encourages bribery.

Read more (via moneyocracy)

"I’ve become less conservative since the Republican Party started becoming goofy."

Sat, 07 Jul 2012 00:10:09 -0400

“I’ve become less conservative since the Republican Party started becoming goofy.”

- Richard Posner, speaking to NPR.

"[There is] an increasing tendency of justices to engage in celebrity-type extrajudicial activities,..."

Wed, 04 Jul 2012 11:56:02 -0400

“[There is] an increasing tendency of justices to engage in celebrity-type extrajudicial activities, such as presiding at mock trials of fictional and historical figures (was Hamlet temporarily insane when he killed Polonius?…). My own view…is that such activities give a mistaken impression of what trials are good for. But I would give Justice Sotomayor a pass for appearing on Sesame Street to adjudicate a dispute between two stuffed animals.”

- Richard Posner, in “Supreme Court Year in Review”, a conversation at Slate (June 27. 2012)

"As of last year there were estimated to be 360,000 illegal immigrants in Arizona, which is less than..."

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 11:58:06 -0400

“

As of last year there were estimated to be 360,000 illegal immigrants in Arizona, which is less than 6 percent of the Arizona population—below the estimated average illegal immigrant population of the United States. (So much for Arizona’s bearing the brunt of illegal immigration.) Maybe Arizona’s illegal immigrants are more violent, less respectful of property, worse spongers off social services, and otherwise more obnoxious than the illegal immigrants in other states, but one would like to see some evidence of that.

Sincerely,
Richard Posner

”

- Yes indeed, Justice Scalia, one would like to see some evidence of that. (via thecallup)

"The chief justice, echoing Justice Scalia’s ‘broccoli’ comment at the oral argument, rejected (as..."

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 11:50:03 -0400

“The chief justice, echoing Justice Scalia’s ‘broccoli’ comment at the oral argument, rejected (as did the four dissenters, and so that is now the view of a majority of the justices) the Commerce Clause ground for the mandate, saying that to accept that ground would mean that ‘Congress could address the diet problem by ordering everyone to buy vegetables.’ This argument, reassuring though it is to our obese population, confuses separate constitutional provisions. The Commerce Clause would empower Congress to order everyone to buy vegetables, because the market for most vegetables is interstate, but the ‘liberty’ protected against the federal government by the Fifth Amendment would doubtless be interpreted to forbid such an imposition, just as it would be interpreted to forbid a federal law requiring everyone to be in bed with the lights out by 10 p.m. in order to economize on the use of electricity and, by doing so, reduce carbon emissions from electrical generating plants.”

- Justice Posner on yesterday’s SCOTUS ruling upholding (most of) the ACA, Part One (via lacartaajena)

"We add that the appellants’ brief is rambling, and would be more effective if compressed to 14,000..."

Sun, 17 Jun 2012 11:49:18 -0400

“We add that the appellants’ brief is rambling, and would be more effective if compressed to 14,000 words.”

- Richard Posner. Most of the time we like to talk about Judge Posner’s great legal work, his insightful economic commentary, or other academic work. Sometimes, we just love his most awesome legal retorts.

"Say’s Law, rather confusingly paraphrased as supply creates its own demand, treats money as a medium..."

Sat, 16 Jun 2012 12:01:01 -0400

“Say’s Law, rather confusingly paraphrased as supply creates its own demand, treats money as a medium of exchange and a standard of value, but nothing more. This is essentially a barter theory of the economy. But modern economies are not barter economists. In a modern economy, receiving money in exchange for some good or service doesn’t dictate that you exchange the money forthwith for some other good or service. You can save the money indefinitely. If you put it under your mattress, it makes no contribution to productive activity. Similarly, money can pile up in Federal Reserve Banks if people are disinclined to spend, without contributing to economic activity.”

- Richard Posner, The Federal Reserve and the World Economic Crisis

"If banks are reluctant to lend and consumers to borrow, increasing the supply of money will not lead..."

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 11:53:01 -0400

“If banks are reluctant to lend and consumers to borrow, increasing the supply of money will not lead to a big increase in borrowing. Instead the banks will use the money to buy Treasury securities, which are riskless assets. The money will go in a circle: the Treasury will buy securities from banks, and banks will use the money to buy securities from the Treasury. Or the Treasury will buy securities from nonbank owners of them, who will deposit the proceeds in banks, which will use the additional cash to buy Treasury securities or increase cash reserves. This is an exaggeration, but can help one to see why increasing the money supply need not increase productive activity.”

- Richard Posner, The Federal Reserve and the World Economic Crisis

"Posner didn’t mince words as he used plain language to beat up the over-reaching arguments of both..."

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 11:59:35 -0400

“

Posner didn’t mince words as he used plain language to beat up the over-reaching arguments of both sides:

[re a slide-to-unlock patent] Apple’s .. argument is that “a tap is a zero-length swipe.” That’s silly. It’s like saying that a point is a zero-length line.

Motorola’s contention that the term has a “plain and ordinary meaning” is ridiculous; Motorola seems to have forgotten that this is a jury trial.

”

- Famous judge spikes Apple-Google case, calls patent system “dysfunctional” — Mobile Technology News (via themaykazine)

"The Amazon business model, though revolutionary, is visibly in the line of descent from mail-order..."

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 22:54:20 -0500

“The Amazon business model, though revolutionary, is visibly in the line of descent from mail-order businesses such as Sears Roebuck. It is a system for the efficient distribution of existiing products. The e-book is a new product in one sense, though in another sense it is merely a new channel for distributing the content of books. It is not yet apparent what advantages e-books have over print books except for travelers, other than easier ordering and faster delivery even of printed books from Amazon.”

- Richard Posner, in this wonderful post about Bookstores, Libraries, and eBooks. A friend of mine runs ‘The Kindle Monologues’ which roughly espouses my own personal views on eBooks and how they are a good thing for readers and authors in general.

"But naïve extrapolation with respect to national economies is treacherous, as Becker points out with..."

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 10:43:05 -0500

“But naïve extrapolation with respect to national economies is treacherous, as Becker points out with the examples of Japan and the Soviet Union, though the examples are slightly different: Japan was growing rapidly, and then stopped; the Soviet Union had stopped growing rapidly when (in our 1960 presidential election, for example) we began fearing that it was growing more rapidly than the U.S. The Soviet Union was about to enter the era of stagnation associated with the Brezhnev years.”

- Richard Posner, Will China Overtake Us? Another great quote is later in the article:

To some extent this adjustment will take place independently of Chinese monetary policy. As wages of Chinese workers in the export sector rise, exports by other nations become more competitive, reducing Chinese exports, beginning a painful transition to a consumer society.

Once again, Judge Posner puts wonderful pictures in his...

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 06:09:10 -0500

Once again, Judge Posner puts wonderful pictures in his opinions.

Generally we here at Fuck Yeah Richard Posner love Posner for...

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 22:48:00 -0500

Generally we here at Fuck Yeah Richard Posner love Posner for his law and economics opinions. However, you have to admit the guy has great wit.

"The police I think made a tactical mistake in routing the “Occupiers” from Zuccotti Park near Wall..."

Sun, 20 Nov 2011 22:18:01 -0500

“The police I think made a tactical mistake in routing the “Occupiers” from Zuccotti Park near Wall Street. That is the lesson of the 1960s. Arrests, whacking demonstrators with billy clubs, dragging screaming women to paddy wagons, and other police just create anger, martyrdom complexes, and sympathy for the demonstrators. The Occupiers had made the mistake of—occupying urban spaces (in imitation of the Egyptians who occupied Tahrir Square in Cairo), rather than marching in them. The occupations attracted criminals, panhandlers, and lunatics, and created unattractive, unsanitary conditions.”

- Richard Posner, on Occupy Wall Street and the Police reaction to the protests. I like Posner’s response here because it suggests that neither party is lilly white in the situation. Further, I tend to agree with a closing statement of his:

Railing against income inequality, job loss, and banking abuses is thus understandable, but it doesn’t do any good. The “Occupiers” are anarchic and disruptive, and the solid middle of American society, which rejects the Tea Party because of its goofy ideas, is likely to reject the Occupy movement because of its style, while broadly sympathetic to its antipathies.

One of the faults of the post, though, is that he later compares a brief editorial written by two members of the Occupy movement with the (in)famous Port Huron Statement—an incredibly more voluminous work—of the largely unlamented Students for a Democratic Society. Although we can argue about the positive and negative impact of the SDS (and the significantly more malignant Weather Underground the grew from it), it is fair to say that the Port Huron Statement was a manifesto with defined ideas and a clarity of purpose. I am not sure the same can be said for any Occupy transmission.

"…[the central] meaning of justice, perhaps the most common is – efficiency… [because] in a world of..."

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 12:11:06 -0400

“…[the central] meaning of justice, perhaps the most common is – efficiency… [because] in a world of scarce resources waste should be regarded as immoral.”

- Richard Posner (via arkoftheache)

thetrichotomousexploration: A public discussion between Aharon...

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 12:05:05 -0400

thetrichotomousexploration:

A public discussion between Aharon Barak of the Israeli Supreme Court and Richard Posner on “Can Democracy Overcome Terror?”.

The New Republic: "Let's Be Honest: We're in a Depression, Not a Recession"

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 12:05:05 -0400

The New Republic: "Let's Be Honest: We're in a Depression, Not a Recession" :

thenewrepublic:

“What can be done now? Probably nothing. Anything that involves spending, such as a new stimulus program, would come too late to be effective… At a 7 percent annual growth rate, our public debt in 2012, estimated at $12.4 trillion, will grow by 40 percent in five years if none of the reforms…

"The economy faces a short-term problem, a medium-term problem, and a long-term problem. The..."

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 18:25:03 -0400

“The economy faces a short-term problem, a medium-term problem, and a long-term problem. The short-term problem is the debt ceiling, the medium-term problem is the depression that the economy is still wallowing in (the orthodox description of it as a mere “recession” that ended in 2009 is misleading), and the long-term problem is entitlements for old people—Medicare, social security, and (to a lesser extent) Medicaid, which to a significant degree operates as medigap insurance for many old people. The three problems are intertwined. The third, the long-term one, may well be the most serious.”

- Richard Posner

Five followers!

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 02:18:18 -0400

Seriously. I never thought it would happen.