Lou Dobbs Smackdown Julian Sanchez administers a nice one, along with a solid argument for free trade, here. My favorite part comes at the end: When it comes to trade, Dobbs’ one-sidedness gets things even more dramatically backwards. I had always been under the naive impression that we have jobs in order to be able […]

Krugman on The Summer Boom Kash goes a long way towards explaining the summer boom in the previous post, and he makes a good case that it’s likely to be revised down toward a still-meaty 6%. Here’s Krugman’s take from today’s NYT: …This time around growth has a much better foundation: final demand — demand […]

Explaining the GDP Boom Further insight into yesterday’s big GDP numbers was provided by the release this morning of the September personal income and spending data by the BEA. Both income and spending were sharply lower in September compared to August. The reason? Overwhelmingly, it was because of the end of the one-time tax rebates […]

300% More Libertarian! Wasting time, I took this political views quiz, which reveals that I am precisely as liberal as Matt Yglesias (we’re both two units left of center, placing us in the neigborhood of Jean Chretien), but two units more Libertarian (scoring a 3 vs. a 1). Hey Matt, why do you want government […]

It’s not my fault, unless the issue is GDP growth, in which case I get all the credit As evidenced by this week’s flap over the Navy forcing the White House to put up the Mission Accomplished sign, this administration is great at buck-passing (Tresy at corrente has an excellent summary). But that only applies […]

Kudos to Republican Senators I’ll give Sen. Pat Roberts, who until now has seemed basically like a White House shill, a little credit for this: To Tenet, the senators wrote, “You must expedite our access to the current list of outstanding documents and interview requests.” “This information was to have been provided to the committee […]

Best Take Yet on the Stalker I’m sure most of you have seen that self-proclaimed poor, stupid, and Krugman-stalking Don Luskin had his lawyer send a letter to Atrios demanding that Atrios remove a post that (accurately) mocked Luskin, and that the accompanying comments also be removed. I don’t have much to add on this; […]

Up is Down Here at Angry Bear, when we make reference to “up is down” or “down is up,” we’re usually referring to some new Orwellian step by the administration (seriously, Karl, 1984 was a warning, not an instruction manual). This morning, Kash showed how “… the BLS has magically discovered a way for jobless […]

The Daily Show Thursday night: JOHN: Isn’t a mistake for the President to blame the Navy for hanging the “mission accomplished” sign up there. ROB:Absolutely not, John. The President didn’t even want it up there at all. But, as you know, he’s got no control over the Navy. JOHN: Rob, he’s the Commander in Chief, […]

Treasury’s Nonsense about China’s Exchange Rate The Treasury Department issued their annual report this morning examining whether any countries are using their exchange rates to unfairly take advantage of the US. Unsurprisingly, the report discusses the politically important issue of China’s exchange rate vis-à-vis the US in some detail. (If you want some background on […]