by divorced one like Bush So, they want a loan…

By Spencer While Congress fiddles and postures it might be informative to look at two highly reliable leading indicators of world economic growth. The first is the Dry Ships Index of various daily bulk cargo rates. Over time this has proven to be a highly sensitive leading indicator of world economic activity. About half of […]

Robert Waldmann Many people are using the term “arsonists” as a loose metaphor for people who share the blame for the current financial crisis. They aren’t suggesting that anyone actually wanted a financial crisis. Cocking my tinfoil hat I will note that it is entirely possible that someone has been making out like a bandit […]

The defences of Alan Greenspan at Grapsing Reality… are legendary. (This response to Tom is my favorite of the lot, and rather representative.) Which makes today’s conversion announcement all the more noteworthy.

By Spencer The advance durable goods numbers are not reassuring. The unsmoothed total orders were down 4.5%. Although the monthly data is very noisy, the smoothed data is also showing weakness as the apparent rebound over the previous two months disappeared. Clearly, the data peaked last year and is trending down with no signs of […]

by cactus Act Now! Now! Now! How nice to hear GW tell us that we have to act now! now! now! or we’re doomed. He gave us that same line in 2001 with respect to tax cuts. He got his tax cuts, the economy tanked, and our surplus died. He gave us the same line […]

UPDATE: Not even the Wall Street Journal editorial page fell for McCain’s “reasoning”: So count us as mystified by Senator John McCain’s decision yesterday to suspend his campaign and call for a postponement in Friday’s first Presidential debate so that he and Barack Obama can work out a consensus bill to stabilize the financial system. […]

Obama’s Rev. Jeremiah Wright looks pretty mainstream to me compared to Palin’s Pastor Muthee.

The historic importance of the Posse Comitatus prohibition was also well-analyzed here. As the recent militarization of St. Paul during the GOP Convention made abundantly clear, our actual police forces are already quite militarized. Still, what possible rationale is there for permanently deploying the U.S. Army inside the United States — under the command of […]

By Divorced one like Bush Just thought I would pass this along. He sounds like a reasonable thinker on the subject of our “crisis”. He makes understanding what is and has happened easy for those feeling lost in the discussions. The big thing I got out of it is we really do not have to […]