LA Times (via John Chait). The projected cost of the $700-billion financial bailout fund — initially feared to be a huge hit to taxpayers — continues to drop, with the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimating Monday that losses would amount to just $25 billion. That’s a sharp drop from the CBO’s last estimate, in August, […]

Ezra Klein explains that Medicare can’t cut payments too much or doctors will opt out The problem is that Medicare can’t control costs too much better than private insurers or, as you see from the article above, doctors will simply abandon Medicare. Klein seems oddly indifferent to the detailed text of the Afordable Care Act. […]

This is another post linking to Ezra Klein. I can’t help linking to his post noting that self identified Republicans and Democrats agreed about how the economy was going when Clinton was President, but then disagreed when Bush was President, with most Republicans saying it was excellent or good in 2006. The data from Pew. […]

Robert Waldmann The gap between public opinion and elite opinions about public opinion never ceases to amaze me. The policy elite seems to have decided that Social Security old age pensions have to be cut. The public is adamantly opposed. It is even more striking that a strong majority supports lifting the payroll tax ceiling […]

Robert Waldmann Matt Taibbi is to Robert Rubin as Glenn Beck is to George Soros.

Robert Waldmann I made the following predictions on September 15 (the predictions are down in the comment thread). I guess R gain 5-6 (which is huge given the fact that this election is 6 years after 2004). To go way out on a limb, I guess R pickups in ND, AR, IN PA & IL […]

Robert Waldmann Matthew Yglesias is puzzled by something Paul Krugman wrote. I don’t totally understand this argument, however: It’s also crucial to understand that a half-hearted version of this policy won’t work. If you say, well, 5 percent sounds like a lot, maybe let’s just shoot for 2.5, you wouldn’t reduce real rates enough to […]

Robert Waldmann Nate Silver gives five reasons that Republicans might do better than his model predicts and five reasons that Democrats might do better. I add two more possible reasons that Democrats might do better after the jump. They are numbered 3.1 and 3.2, because they are variants on his third reason More on likely […]

Robert Waldmann Matt Yglesias wonders if people have to speculate in housing. What if someone wants to buy a house but doesn’t want to gamble that house prices will increase ? Is there anything to be done ? In theory, this problem has been solved. It is now possible for home buyers to hedge. It […]

Robert Waldmann Paul Krugman October 23 This isn’t original, although I don’t know who deserves the credit. So, here it is: in effect, QE2 amounts to a decision by the US government to shorten the maturity of its outstanding debt, paying off long-term bonds while borrowing short-term. [skip] It’s just as if Treasury sold 3-month […]