Yet another thing that Katrina has done this week is to highlight some stark differences in what people believe about the world and the appropriate role for government. That’s because Katrina has grimly reminded us of this fact of life: sometimes bad things happen to good people, through no fault of their own. Sometimes people […]

Not because I’m thinking much about it today, but because I feel like I should at least mention it: the August employment report was released by the BLS this morning. From the report: Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 169,000 in August, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 4.9 percent, the Bureau of Labor […]

One of the most basic reasons why we have a government is for the reason articulated by Thomas Hobbes over 350 years ago: without government, we would be in a “state of nature” in which there are: “no arts, no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent […]

Before I return to the RBC debate, let’s all pray that FEMA picks the pace. Our prayers all with the Gulf Coast residents and we know our nation can do better. Back on August 21, I should have led with: I should mention one problem with my fourth and favorite real business cycle suggestion, which […]

In contrast to what many people would have otherwise expected, Katrina’s aftermath is getting worse by the day, not better. In New Orleans: Huge crowds, hoping to finally escape the stifling confines of the stadium, jammed the main concourse outside the dome, spilling out over the ramp to the Hyatt hotel next door — a […]

As Calculated Risk notes this morning, the quarterly estimate of housing price appreciation by the OFHEO was just released for the April-June period of 2005. As usual, my preferred way of looking at this data is at the level of local (i.e. metropolitan area) markets. The following two charts present a sampling of house prices […]

Personal consumption spending in July was high. Very high. In fact, people spent considerably more than they earned, so the personal savings rate in July was negative: -0.6% of disposable income, to be precise. That means that, for only the second time in the past several decades (the first was in October 2001), households as […]

Passed on without comment, from today’s New York Times editorial: George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday, especially given the level of national distress and the need for words of consolation and wisdom. In what seems to be a ritual in this administration, the president appeared a day later […]

The WSJ really does have great news coverage, but man is their editorial team dragging the whole paper’s reputation into the ground. Via Brad DeLong, Stephen Moore (former Club for Growth president and now “a member of The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board”) actually wrote this: The explosion of benefits paid to workers is in […]