Fiscal Cliff and other Topographical Metaphors

Blueprints , Swiss Army knives , and other metaphors

combat battle. Moreover, it is often delayed in its onset. These observations have led McGaugh and other neuroscientists to speculate that perhaps a post-trauma drug could be given to trauma victims that would block the action of stress hormones, which might attenuate (or even prevent) the development of PTSD. Early work reveals the promise in this original idea. As a result, ethical issues hav...

Cliff hangers

The peregrine falcon holds a special place in the minds of environmentalists and conservation biologists. The crash in its population throughout the 1950s and 60s was linked to the rapidly increasing use of agricultural organochlorine pesticides which led to a thinning of the birds’ eggshells and dramatic breeding failure. Since the widespread ban on the use of these chemicals, populations have...

Cliff hanger

The asparagus season has recently ended for northern hemisphere crops. Tradition has it that, at the summer solstice, growers stop cutting spears to allow the plant to grow and produce enough resources to generate spears for the next spring’s crop. The plant is becoming increasingly fashionable and production is increasing to meet demand. But the cultivated asparagus has a wild relative that is...

CLiFF Notes

1 Fiscal Flows , Fiscal Balance , and Fiscal Sustainability Richard

The search for “fiscal indicators” to provide a short-hand (and preferably quantitative) picture of the size, direction, and nature of intergovernmental finance – and, ideally, some guidance for policy designed to improve outcomes – appears to be neverending. “Fiscal balance” and “fiscal sustainability” are, for example, terms commonly heard in discussions of intergovernmental fiscal relations....