Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

$10,000 limit. Can’t fill the tank

Seems another sign of the new era of banking fraud awareness comes from the price of gasoline/fuel. You can’t pump more than $75 worth. The $75 limit “ensures merchants and customers are protected from fraud,” says MasterCard spokesman Tristan Jordan. Visa and Mastercard are worried about you and the station getting ripped off. Really? Interesting […]

Real GDP growth this cycle

With the latest real GDP release it might be of interest to look at the comparison of this cycle to other long cycles. You can see for yourself the great success of the Bush trickle down economics.

Soc Sec XV: Why do they care?

Properly speaking this is not an economics post. So most of it is below the fold. I started a Social Security blog in Nov. 2004 in the wake of Bush’s announcement that he would expend his new political capital on Social Security ‘reform’. At that point in time I had been looking at these numbers […]

Oil and oil addictions

The Economist poses some conjectures for oil and Iraq: …Things may be changing. Iraq’s deputy prime minister, Barham Salih, said in April that Iraq’s total reserves, could be as high as 350bn barrels, triple the 115bn that has been its officially stated level for many years. The figure is aspirational and should be treated carefully […]

Neurologica blog

Neurologica blog is a link stolen from Afferent Inputs original site. Way cool and thoughtful. Thanks. No royalties being forwarded.

A Quick One on Externalities of Foreign Trade

I won’t pretend this is part of the Vladimir Masch discussion, or one of the traditional thorough-analysis Angry Bear posts. Just a data point on which we may need to work later, and a report that will be of interest to many who read here. UPDATE: As rdan notes in comments, this “links to testing […]

Soc Sec XIV: Why benefit cuts and cap increases backfire

I know I promised to back off the pace but yesterday’s comment thread got temporarily derailed before the point could be made. In yesterday’s post I highlighted the cash flow in and out of the General Fund to redeem the Trust Fund ‘Crisis’ at Shortfall in an effort to show that in inflation adjusted dollars […]

Singapore and healthcare

Reader Whatever sends along an article on the health system in Singapore written in The American: The People’s Action Party has ruled Singapore since the British left, and is led today by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, the son of founder Lee Kuan Yew. It calls the health system it has put in place the […]

Soc Sec XIII: ‘Crisis’ at Shortfall; or Show me the Money

Social Security ‘crisis’ is normally discussed in terms of Trust Fund Depletion. But given that this event has been pushed back to at least 2041 and boils down to a benefit in real terms 25% better than the one my Mom gets today (78% of 160% = 125%), and that some awareness of this leaked […]