Atrios writes this: Goodbye Pensions: US Airways asks to skip pension payment Reason number 8 million why we need Social Security… linking to this story Many of the U.S. airlines are struggling financially with massive debt and very little equity and we noted here on the Pension Benefits Guaranty Corporation may be teetering on the […]

Condoleezza Rice and Senator Joseph Biden appeared on Face the Nation Sunday. Rice was spinning how well the plan to turn over Iraq’s security was going, but Biden basically called her and Sec. Rumsfeld liars. Rice: It’s not going to happen. The Iraqi security forces are being built and built quickly. They performed very well […]

Today’s Guardian gives some details about the investigative reporting done by Seymour Hersh on the prisoner abuse crimes in Iraq and Guantanamo. He appears to have evidence that Rice, Rumsfeld, and senior members of the CIA had personal knowledge of the crimes that US soldiers were perpetrating against suspects. Bush team ‘knew of abuse’ at […]

Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley begs to differ from Alan Greenspan’s optimistic statement last week that the economy is pretty much past the “soft patch” of the May-July period. Consumers aren’t providing much impetus for the economy, he argues, and neither are firms: Nor is Corporate America stepping up and delivering any autonomous traction of […]

It seems that North Korea may be close to its first test of a nuclear weapon. Some news reports this morning suggested that they may already have done so, though it is now looking increasingly like the large explosion in North Korea over the weekend was not nuclear. If North Korea does indeed perform a […]

Wow. And there’s much more destruction yet to come. Kash

Yesterday the Kaiser Foundation released the Employer Health Benefits 2004 Annual Survey. Here are a few comparisons between the 2004 survey results and the 2001 results: Over the past 3 years, health benefits have gotten far more expensive for both employer and employees, have covered fewer workers, and have given those workers who do get […]

This morning the BLS released its latest PPI data, covering August. It showed continued — in fact, increased — weakness in pricing power. The core price level (ex. food and energy) fell by 0.1%. While this may end up being good for consumers (though only if worker compensation doesn’t also fall), this is yet more […]

Postcards from Old Europe – Thank God for Alan Greenspan The week which is ending today hasn’t brought us much in the way of hard economic news. Alan Greenspan’s testimony before the House Budget Committee was probably the only thing that kept people at their desks. The Federal Reserve chief managed to be upbeat and […]

CNN reports : (CNN) — Osama bin Laden’s top lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri, appeared in a videotape message Thursday on the Arabic-language TV news network Al-Jazeera, saying southern and eastern Afghanistan is control of the mujahedeen.Wearing a white turban and glasses, al-Zawahiri said that American forces are hunkered down and afraid to respond to advances of […]