The Latest Pew Global Attitudes Survey The survey was conducted in February, so some of the number may already be dated as a result of the attacks in Spain. What have we learned? In every surveyed country except the US, more people believe that the Iraq War hurt the war against terrorism than believe it […]

Bush: It’s not my fault In the latest ad, Bush is going after Kerry for voting against the $87b for Iraq last year: The commercial shows clips of soldiers and a military plane taking off. Those images are mixed in with pictures of the U.S. Capitol, the legislative chamber and a shot of Kerry. “Few […]

Interest Rates Unchanged As expected, the Fed left the federal funds rate at 1%. Underpinning this is the belief that demand growth will lag behind productivity growth. From Reuters: RICHARD FRANULOVICH, SENIOR CURRENCY STRATEGIST, WESTPAC BANKING CORP, NEW YORK: “Looks like the Fed is no longer offering an optimistic outlook on the labor market. Recall […]

The Cyclically Adjusted Budget Deficit The CBO has released its estimates of the “cyclically adjusted” budget balance for the US. What does that mean? The CBO explains: Calculations of cyclically adjusted budget measures attempt to remove the effects of the business cycle on revenues and outlays (that is, the cyclical part of the budget). For […]

Deficits and Republicans The blossoming of the Bush budget deficits puts some Republicans in an awkward position. Most Republicans would call themselves “fiscally conservative.” But this can have several different meanings, some of which conflict with each other. Does it mean that you want low taxes, or low deficits? Does it mean that you want […]

Politics Triumphing Over Economics My latest post is up at The American Street, on how economic policy making under the Bush administration has routinely ignored the advice of economists. Kash

The Divine Dynamic Duo Since I got this from Atrios, who got it from Slate, you’ve probably already seen it. But just in case you haven’t, here’s Bush speaking for himself and God, working hand-in-hand (I’ve also added the spiffy title): “God loves you, and I love you. And you can count on both of […]

An Obvious, Overdue Point Finally someone in the mainstream press has made this point. Jonathan Weisman of the Washington Post writes: When President Bill Clinton raised taxes in 1993, the unemployment rate dropped, from 6.9 to 6.1 percent, and kept falling each of the next seven years. When President Bush cut taxes in 2001, the […]

Bush Proposes Tax Increase! Last week, the Bush campaign charged that Kerry plans to raise taxes by at least $900b. Of course, Kerry never said that(*); instead, the Bush campaign relied on the logic that if the cost of Kerry’s policy proposals add up to $900b (over ten years) then Kerry must be proposing tax […]

Spainish Elections: A Vote Against Bush’s Invasion of Iraq Today’s election results from Spain are really, really significant. The ruling conservative party lost and the opposition socialist party (which was in power from 1982 to 1996) achieved a major and unexpected victory. Why? The economy in Spain has been doing very well under the center-right […]