Postcards from Old Europe – Fed Watching Last Friday saw the release of payroll data for the month of May. As most of you know the number came in at a not too hot, not too cool +248k. The accompanying data was heartening as well, with the workweek rising to 33.8 hours. More work means […]

Thoughts on This Week’s News I’m back from a nice two week vacation, which was a good break not only from work, but also from the news. I’ve just started catching up on my reading, including PGL’s excellent work here on Angry Bear while I was gone. On the whole, it seems that it was […]

Ok, so you love Ronald Reagan … … but you’re unsure whether Reagan’s overall bestness-at-everythingness necessarily means that you have to love George W. Bush as well? Well fret no more. In this masterful hard-news piece (really, it’s “news” not “commentary” or “analysis”), CBS kindly solves your dilemma: Reagan and W. Bush are exactly the […]

Government variations on Enron accounting Kash returns tomorrow so I thought I’d have my last post cover another one of my pet peeves that covers public finance concerns and a twist on how financial economics impacts tax contorversies. Janet Yellin’s “The Bringe Mentality in the Federal Deficit” drew a parallel to what Wall Street has […]

Is Blair about to endorse Kerry? David Williamson of The Western Mail writes: STEVE MORGAN, the Welshman at the heart of the John Kerry presidential campaign, said yesterday Peter Hain’s upcoming visit with senior Democrats suggests that the Government is now expecting President Bush to lose the November election. He said several potential scandals were […]

Reagan’s small-government vision Last Wednesday, I gave Cato’s Chris Edwards an A for effort for his suggestions as to how to reduce government spending by almost $300 billion per year and asked you to check out the details. Some of you did and were quite hard on Mr. Edwards. After reading his “Reagan’s small-government vision” […]

Stock options: Lieberman Lobbyists in London and the tax arena “LONDON–European opponents of stock option expensing said June 7 they are stepping up pressure on United Kingdom officials to win last-minute exemptions from the coming use of an international standard to account for employee share and share option plans in Europe.” BNA’s Daily Tax Report […]

Torture Memo Online The WSJ has posted the full 3/6/2003 torture memo (with a redaction or two), “Working Group Report on Detainee Interrogations in The Global War on Terrorism: Assessment of Legal, Historical, Policy, and Operational Considerations.” Warning: it’s a fairly large pdf file. I haven’t had time to read it yet, though I plan […]

News from the G8 on Iraq And not good news either: Nevertheless, U.S. officials acknowledge that their previous goal of drawing in more foreign troops was all but gone. Bush’s national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said the hope now was that the new resolution would persuade those countries with troops already in Iraq to “stay […]

I’m Back Did anything interesting or newsworthy happen while I was gone? AB P.S. Kidding aside, I’m still loaded with catch-up work for the next few days, so hopefully I can impose upon PGL to continue filling in for a bit. Kash is due back later this week, too.