Active commenter cum blogger Elaine Supkis now has her own blog: Culture of Life News! (URL updated) AB

I have never been a fan of Lindsey Graham but the enemy of my enemy – well you know the drill. Graham once endorse the same kind of ‘heads I win, tails you lose’ plan for privatization that James DeMint is pushing. But now that he is uttering the suggestion of tax rate increases, DeMint […]

The big news from this Bloomberg story is captured by its title: Stock-Market Returns May Not Meet Bush’s Social Security Hopes But when other economists noted slower long-term growth would suggest lower stock returns, the Treas. Sec. suggested we would still have strong long-term growth: Treasury’s Snow says high stock-market returns will be possible because […]

Via Joshua Marshall comes this article by Dan Balz: Schwarzenegger says the proposals are needed to fix the structural deficit facing the state and the way politics are practiced in Sacramento. His critics say they will do nothing of the sort and accuse him of lacking the courage to do what two of his GOP […]

Mr. Magoo sees bubbles too! Just last month, in testimony to Congress, Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan opined on housing: “I think we’re running into certain problems in certain localized areas.” Considering he never saw the Nasdaq bubble, the housing bubble must be enormous. And localized? According to an FDIC report released in February, the housing […]

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Angrybear readers know I often cite Robert Barro’s Economic Viewpoint: Business Week: July 3, 2000. Barro challenges the free lunch claims often cited by supporters of privatization. Tyler Cowen has made some excellent contributions to this debate and now he suggests we read Robert Barro’s latest.

I’ve decided to say something nice about Larry – he’s actually has a proposal to cut $150 billion per year in Federal spending. I know – this is still far short of reigning in that massive General Fund deficit, but someone has to offer up something. Larry’s list is short and to the point. Cut […]

Did the Social Security deformers read Robert Schiller’s paper? This story from CNN suggests they may have: Hubbard told the Journal that 3 percent was chosen because that is what actuaries estimate will be the government’s cost of long-term borrowing, making the accounts “fiscally neutral.” “One could argue 2 percent is more appropriate. But that […]

Teeing off on Robert Samuelson (as did PGL), Mark Thoma echoes a point I’ve made before and adds an important caution: When I think of welfare, I think of pure money transfers from one group to another without any economic basis for the transfer. In such cases, one person’s gain arises from another’s loss. But […]