by reader noni mousa Dueling Mooses — Kristol tries to confuse the issue — FAIL! William Kristol (NYT today) defends Palin as a VP pick. Are we convinced? Here, see what he says: Should voters be alarmed by a relatively young or inexperienced vice-presidential candidate? No. Since 1900, five vice presidents have succeeded to the […]
Via the sainted and gorgeous Bess Levin at Dealbreaker the erudite Felix Salmon at Portfolio.com, Michael Giberson at Knowledge Problem summarizes why even a Bush Administration initiative that might have had an upside falls victim to Daniel Davies’s Three Laws: In response to disruptions caused by Hurricane Gustav, the DOE has indicated a willingness to […]
by Divorced one like Bush From comments in Cactus’ post: “Now in the last couple of years we have seen unprecedented oil prices that have sapped our economy’s strength.” Yes, we have. Others have presented this argument. However,there was plenty of information in existence long before the “last couple of years” regarding the issue of […]
by Tilman Tacke and Robert Waldmann We don’t know if someone else has noticed this amazing fact: in a cross country regression, the ratio of public health care spending to GDP is negatively correlated with the infant mortality rate as one would expect, but the share of private health care spending in GDP is positively […]
by cactus Back in January, I had a post entitled Why is the Economy in Trouble? Seriously, Why is the Economy in Trouble?. If I may quote myself extensively (and I may!!): [W]hy is the economy in a state where even rational people are talking about the need for stimulus only a few years after […]
by CoRev and Rdan Let’s compare the two candidates policies, major component by major component. It will not be easy because they are both extensive but modestly detailed. Furthermore, you the reader will have to do some work by reading their plans. So let’s get started with “Energy” because it is, to my mind the […]
In the last installment of this Social Security series we kind of dug into some of the details of unfunded liability, what it was and what it wasn’t and most importantly where the incidence occured: in the past or in the future. Backwards Transfer is Back. In the course of that I think it became […]
Hat tip to Anonymous for the Wapo article. In January 2007, as years of loose mortgage lending were about to send the nation’s housing market into devastating decline, Fannie Mae chief executive Daniel H. Mudd wrote a confidential memo to his board. Discussing the company’s successes, Mudd said one of Fannie Mae’s achievements in 2006 […]
Via Drs. DeLong and Black, the WaPo reports that this version of the S&L crisis will repeat the mistakes of the last one: Instead of giving each company a big capital infusion upfront, the government could make quarterly injections as the companies’ losses warrant, the sources said. This would be an attempt to minimize the […]
CoRev says: Dan, may I suggest an open thread that allow us to list the various policy issues and then discuss them. I would start with:1) Economic2) Energy3) Jobs [and I consider 1,2 & 3 to be closely interlinked]4) Fiscal— Balanced Budget— Taxes5) National Security It is hard to divorce any one policy or subpart […]