by reader Jack Diogene’s Lantern: Can We Shed Some Light On the Issue Angry Bear has had a long series of conversations regarding the issueof Social Security and the projections concerning its long term financial viability. The many threads which focus on this issue have been initiated, for the most part, by postings by Bruce […]

These are direct quotes from comments and testimony on this post. Evening news segment: TODAY ON CAPITOL HILL [roll tape] Senator Sammmy: “Ladies and gentlemen, this op-ed in my hands says that the USGS has released a new exploratory study indicating that the Artic region may hold 90 billion barrels of crude oil. And a […]

My Loyal Reader sends this link, with this pull quote: “They had four major and respected law firms advising them, as well as Lazard,” said Markel. “And all of them, all of them were advising the board that there was zero value in a bankruptcy for shareholders as well as losses to creditors.” When are […]

I wrote something about crude oil, inventories and contango below and there were 57 comments including one, from Aaron which refered to this post in the future indicative. A lot of the discussion is Krugman pro and con (mostly con). I think I will review my take on his arguments here as an introduction. I […]

from ataxingmatter Should Congress make the Bush Tax Cuts Permanent? Back in April, the Joint Economic Committee put out a press release and report on the Bush Tax cuts. We are now a few months closer to the election, and seeing increasing pressure from Republicans in Congress to make the Bush tax cuts permanent. It’s […]

In the grand tradition of “pulled from comments,” I’m pulling this one—from Brad DeLong’s blog, in response to this post: …Manzi does not seem to have a consistent view of the concavity of instantaneous indirect utility functions. He argues that it would be absurd to consume the proceeds of the IPO of a successful startup […]

In reviewing some of the final comments on XLI: Why not assume Low Cost the following partial comment caught my eye: “We are not going to grow our way out of this. And it’s highly unlikely that we will tax our way out, either.” To which I would want to ask: “Who says? And can […]

Via Andrew Samwick at Capital Gains and Games, note that David Altig’s Macroblog is back. (Altig is now the Research Director at the FRB Atlanta; it appears he has settled into the job and is expanding his bandwidth.) As Dr. Samwick said, set your bookmarks (or RSS feeders or whatever all the Cuil kids are […]

Hat tip to reader sammy Title: Are We Really Running Out of Oil? This post might give the Peak Oilers pause. Arctic Abundance found originally at USGS. It has become something of an article of faith among those who oppose drilling in the Arctic that it’s too much trouble for too little oil. Well, how […]

Retail sales were reported down 0.1%, but that included gasoline and groceries. If you take them out nominal retail sales fell -0.4%. On a year over year basis real retail sales growth is sitting right about zero. The BEA deflator data will not be available until the end of the month but I made a […]