Today’s Reads 1/3/2013

1. Why Republicans won’t admit that supply side economics have failed (Fiscal Times)
2. Africa’s poorest country on the brink (Economist)
3. With 12 months to go until health care reform full kicks in, there is much to do… and to worry about (Economist)
4. 10 fastest growing economies, Mongolia tops the list at a whopping 18% (Economist)
5. No evidence for how much debt is too much for wealthy countries, but much evidence indicating that investors don’t seem worried about getting repaid. Policy makers need to listen to investors, rather than over-reactionary, under-informed Americans (Economist)
6. HIV in China: It is amazing to me how backward Asian countries are in matters of HIV, but in China, things are looking up. (NYT) Also: How you can buy meth and guns over the internet in China but can’t access the New York Times (NYT)
7. Right wing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, determined to wreck Asian stability, seeks to water down a 1995 apology for Japan’s awful wartime past. Do these old men never learn? (NYT)
8. The history of the assault weapons ban (NYT)
9. The story on the high marginal tax rates of the 1950’s (Bloomberg)
10. Good riddance to the worst Congress in American history, and what an awful Congress is was (Bloomberg)