The title of the latest from Jonah Goldberg might suggest that he was about to criticize Governor Schwarzenegger. Alas, this is as far as he goes in criticism: I was against the recall on the grounds that the people of California elected Gray Davis and therefore they deserved to be punished. Seriously. Democracy isn’t merely […]

Congressional Democrats yesterday put forth a proposal to try to boost the US’s household savings rate, which is extremely low both compared to the past and compared to other countries. NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – Democratic members of Congress introduced a retirement security plan Tuesday that promises to foster savings among middle- and working-class individuals. The […]

Today’s news that the Chinese Central Bank is still managing the value of the yuan is a good excuse to revisit the issue as to whether the yuan is significantly undervalued. Senator Lindsey Graham has been claimed that the yuan is undervalued by at least 15% and by as much as 40%. His claim appears […]

Duncan Black (see Dance PNAC Monkey Dance) catches Gary Schmitt sliming Larry Johnson. We noted how Ramesh Ponnunu also accused Mr. Johnson of being a Democratic partisan. Matthew Yglesias places Schmitt v. Johnson in its proper context: This is “slime and defend” at its best. Joe Wilson said some stuff that was politically inconvenient for […]

The gold bugs over at the National Review have been arguing against letting the yuan float. Mark Thoma provides one review of Lawrence Kudlow as Mark points to Milton Friedman as a proponent of currency stability. Friedman is also seen as a proponent of floating exchange rates and his recent comments point out that fixed […]

ThinkProgress reviewed the Frank Rich oped that noted Alberto Gonzales received notice of the special prosecutor’s inquiry during the evening of September 29, 2003 notification but waited 12 hours before telling the staff to preserve all documents. Gonzalez had trouble with Bob Scheiffer’s questions on Face the Nation: SCHIEFFER: Let me just ask you the […]

I owe our Angrybear readers an answer related to this post, which in part critiqued Michael Darda. One line which puzzled our readers was: Labor compensation is growing above a 7 percent annual rate while aggregate hours worked are rising at a rate consistent with 4 percent real GDP growth. Forgive me for thinking that […]

As Greenspan discussed at length earlier this week in his semi-annual report to Congress, economists still have no clear-cut explanation for the “conundrum” (or Interest Rate Mystery, as I like to call it) of stubbornly low long-term interest rates in the US. But perhaps that’s because there really is no conundrum. Perhaps the US’s surprisingly […]

Last week when the Chinese central bank first announced that they were going to change the value of their currency against the dollar, I suggested that one of the interesting things to keep an eye on would be long-term interest rates in the US. It turns out that long-term US interest rates did indeed bump […]

Your company’s cash flow was surprisingly strong last quarter. What do you do? I can tell you from experience that most managers start spending more. A new computer system here, a few new hires there, maybe a larger bonus for the executives; more spending is the impulse reaction. But some executives are more cautious. They […]