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

All publicity is good publicity, as long as they spell your name right! I just noticed that Angry Bear is linked by Marvin Olasky’s blog. Yes, the Marvin Olasky. Journalism professor at Texas, sometimes called Bush’s “Christian Guru,” and coiner of the phrase “Compassionate Conservatism” as adopted by George Bush. A bit about his blog: […]

Military Records When there was a mini-flareup last week of Kerry’s military record, I speculated that “Kerry just might have a litttle Brer Rabbit in him, and the Republicans were kind enough to toss him right into the briar patch.” We’ll see if the issue gets anymore traction this time around in the mainstream press, […]

GDP Data This Week We have one interesting piece of economic data to look forward to later this week. The advance estimates of first quarter GDP growth will come out on Thursday. The consensus forecast seems to be for a big, big positive number, with perhaps around 5.0% annualized growth. This release takes on added […]

Decreasing Competition From today’s headlines, here’s another example of exactly why I think competition has declined in recent years – with detrimental effects on workers and consumers. Of course, the pharmaceutical industry also gets a big hand in reducing competition thanks to the Bush administration’s opposition to international competition in pharmaceutical products… Kash

Free Trade Brad DeLong: I fully expect, someday, to read that Daniel Davies has been arrested in Manhattan outside the offices of the New York Times, and was carried away for psychiatric observation shouting incomprehensible slogans like “the international economy is not a zero sum game!” Unless, of course, it happens to me first. AB

The Profit Mystery The Economic Policy Institute recently posted an interesting brief on the incredible surge in corporate profits that has accompanied the economic recovery over the past two years. (Thanks, Greg, for alerting me to this.) The data, from the BEA’s national income accounts, provides another representation of something that we’ve already seen in […]

The Memory Hole Congratulations are due to The Memory Hole. Due to their Freedom of Information Act request, they have almost single-handedly splashed the banned images of coffins returning home from Iraq across the front pages of dozens, if not hundreds of newspapers in the US. (See for example the NYTimes, Washington Post, and the […]

Three Easy Steps Click. Read. Laugh. What a giant tool! AB P.S. Note to Chuck K.: Read this, from a source you should trust.

Postcards from Old Europe I was in Romania until yesterday evening and am about to head off to an offsite meeting. This means that there won’t be much of a postcard this week. Last week’s card looked a the upcoming expansion of the European Union; this week’s trip gave me a chance to talk about […]

What Happens if a Big Chunk of Congress is Killed? Well, apparently there’s currently no real plan, but Congress is working on one. The plan is to hold special elections within 45 days should 100 or more Congressmen and Congresswomen be killed. But, based on the following description, they may have failed to consider something: […]