Interesting blog bits

1. Don Boudreaux asks What's Behind Foreclosures? Most people think it is problems with subprime mortgages, but the focus on subprimes ignores the widely available industry facts that 51% of all foreclosed homes had prime loans, not subprime, and that the foreclosure rate for prime loans grew by 488% compared to a growth rate of 200% for subprime foreclosures.
2. Brad Taylor on Selling Weed on Twitter. California won’t let the gays marry but it does let people micro-blog (medical) drug deals.
3. Defective Equilibrium on Gender-Based Pay Discrimination and Pregnancy and a Follow-up on Pay Equity.
4. Oxonomics on The Economic Consequences of the French Revolution. Exogenously imposing the institutions of the French Revolution apparently had a beneficial impact on Western Germany.
5. Tim Harford on Why getting complicated increases the wealth of nations. One of the defining characteristics of the modern economy is that it’s awfully complicated.
6. David Galenson on Conceptual revolutions in twentieth-century art. The art of the past century was radically different from earlier art. This column says that that was a direct result of a basic change in the structure of the market for advanced art that occurred during the late nineteenth century. Indeed, contemporary art is the logical result of young conceptual innovators operating in a competitive market that has consistently rewarded radical and conspicuous innovation.
7. Mario Rizzo on Monetary Policy At War With Itself. When economists, like Paul Krugman, say that there is not enough investment spending and attribute this to a "liquidity trap" they fail to see how the central bank is contributing to the very problem they are complaining about.