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

David Simon via Bill Moyers

I can’t get past just how juvenile the thought is that if you just let the markets be the markets, they’ll solve everything.  And if profit is your only metric, man, what are you building?  David Simon This is the first part of an interview with David Simon.   He is a “journalist and creator of the […]

Debt and Growth

Art at The New Arthurian Economics and I are looking at the relationship between debt and economic growth.  Art started with an observation of two FRED series, total credit market debt owed (TCMDO) and Gross Domestic Product (GDP,  nominal or GDPC1, inflation adjusted – take your pick.) Graph 1, from FRED, shows these data series.  […]

It’s Not that the White House Lies Even to Itself…

It’s that they are so bad at it. At least they made clear that Glenn Greenwald was correct when he said the deal is exactly what Obama wanted: Fact: President Obama laid out key priorities that had to be part of any deal. Those priorities are reflected in this compromise.…the initial down payment on deficit […]

A fable: The Guitar Player who sold his gear or, Bruce Henderson vs. Gordon Moore

by divorced one like Bush Gather all around the camp fire and enjoy your marsh mellow toasting as I tell you the fable of the “The Guitar Player who sold his gear”. Long ago in a far away land of rock and roll there was a young man who played well. Not great, wasn’t going […]

The disconnect of my economy with the money economy

by Divorced one like Bush The Yahoo Financial page has had this headline from the AP up for a while today:Top StoriesInvestors are cautious as swine flu cases increase- APThis is the first line: The swine flu gave Wall Street a reason to turn cautious. The Dow Jones industrial average gave up a midday recovery […]

Larger, greater than expected…Declines

by Divorced one like Bush US Initial jobless claims decline larger than expected in May 31 week (6/5/08) Mortgage finance giant suffers much larger-than-expected loss due to reserves for credit losses and slashes its dividend to preserve capital. (8/8/08) Factory orders decline more than expected in August (10/2/08) Retail sales for September posted its steepest […]