CNN reports: WASHINGTON (CNN) – After hours of heated exchanges, the Senate failed Thursday evening to close off debate on President Bush’s nomination of John R. Bolton to be ambassador to the United Nations … Two key Democratic senators – Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and Joe Biden of Delaware – asked their Democratic colleagues Thursday […]

John Tamny tries to argue that a yuan appreciation will not lower our bilateral trade deficit with China: Some might say that any harm brought on less politically connected U.S. business sectors will be made up for by companies allegedly made more competitive by attempts to weaken China. But these people will have not thought […]

This Court ruling sounds reasonable: HOUSTON (Reuters) – Thousands of former Enron Corp. employees will share $85 million in insurance proceeds to compensate for pensions lost when the energy giant collapsed into bankruptcy, a federal judge ruled this week. So the incredibly arrogant part is: U.S. District Court Judge Melinda Harmon formally approved the settlement […]

Peronet Despeignes’s interview with Greg Mankiw was noted by Mark Thoma and Tyler Cowen and was critiqued in part by Brad DeLong. I wish to take on a couple of comments regarding fiscal policy. The first relates to: The policy process worked extremely well. It’s not like one person sits there—like Karl Rove sits off […]

My apologies to all, but I’ll be taking a brief blogging hiatus this week to spend time with my new baby daughter (my second), who was born over the weekend. I’ll be back at work soon… but not quite yet. First my body needs to re-learn how to deal with getting sleep only in 1 […]

Let’s compare two stories. One seems to have Bush admitting he’s a divider: “I fully recognize some in Washington, you know, don’t particularly want to address this issue,” Bush said in an auditorium at Greece Athena Middle and High School. I recognize some of them say, `Well, this is, this is a partisan thing. You […]

Conservative and liberal economists in Blogland have been very critical of the recent announcement from the Commerce Department: U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos M. Gutierrez announced today the initiation of a new system to monitor imports of textiles and apparel products. The system will allow the Department and the public timely access to preliminary textile […]

The insanity continues. The San Luis Obispo Tribune reports: “Interest-only loans financed nearly 70 percent of the home purchases in San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo counties during the first two months of this year …” The article concludes with quotes from two economists with opposing views of the growing use of IO loans. First, […]

… about their Social Security money. Via Brad DeLong, Daniel Froomkin notes that President Bush is Exploiting a Misconception. Congressman Kendrick Meek tells young voters the truth: MIAMI, Florida (AP) — Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Florida, appealed to young taxpayers Saturday to oppose President Bush’s plan to partially privatize Social Security, saying they had to the […]

Time for another installment in an irregular series. I thought this email said a lot about the media’s truly poor job in covering the privatization debate: In regards to Bush’s privorization plan for Social Security, I caught the tail end of a speech that a U.S. Senator was giving in Congress. He stated that contrary […]