When government provides a service, such as health care or education, variation tends to be random. There is no market mechanism to weed out bad performance or reward good performance.

In addition to the paralyzing impact on trading from the loose cannon talk of Hungarian government officials, German short selling experts, Chinese property bubble poppers, European spendthrifts turned sober, US Congressional financial sages reregulating the entire US financial system, oil spill disaster and drilling moratoriums, all at the same time the global economy is trying to overcome, it’s summer time!

… senior Obama administration officials have been telling foreign governments that the administration intends to support an effort next week at the United Nations to set up an independent commission, under UN auspices, to investigate Israel’s behavior in the Gaza flotilla incident. … the White House has apparently shrugged off concerns from elsewhere in the U.S. government that a) this is an extraordinary singling out of Israel, since all kinds of much worse incidents happen around the world without spurring UN investigations; b) that the investigation will be one-sided, focusing entirely on Israeli behavior and not on Turkey or on Hamas; and c) that this sets a terrible precedent for outside investigations of incidents involving U.S. troops or intelligence operatives as we conduct our own war on terror.