By Spencer This map in today’s New York Times is fascinating. It is of the counties that voted more republican this year than in 2004. But if you did a map of the poorest counties in the US it would be almost identical. It shows the people that vote to keep themselves barefoot and pregnant.

Robert Waldmann can’t help but argue at very great length that one sentence by Kevin Drum is totally utterly completely wrong. “The public face of his economic policy, after all, was almost entirely based on tax cuts, a distinctly conservative notion.” Andrew Sable makes a much better counterargument than mine here. Mr Drum has fallen […]

Or does he know better? This year’s election coincided with an important moment in the financial crisis. The credit markets have stabilized in the last few weeks and even improved a bit. But the rest of the economy is deteriorating fairly rapidly. It’s now in danger of falling into a vicious spiral, in which spending […]

“Dust and debris” from counting votes could foul up machine that counts votes. Huh? By Noni Mausa In most districts the voting dust has all settled, but not in Minnesota, where a contested Senate seat is so finely balanced (by 0.01% or so) that a recount is mandated by election law. I have been following […]

by cactus What We Owe Obama What we owe Obama is… nothing. Its the same thing we would owe McCain if he were elected President. Its what we owe anyone else who becomes President. See, being President is a privilege. Its not a right, for anyone. There’s no situation in which you can say: “Well, […]

Dedicated to the curmudgeon wing of AB readers and commenters. Old, Grizzled Third-Party Candidate May Steal Support From McCain

(hat tip to Jo Walton)

Is gay the New Black? Note this partial list of companies who said No on 8: Most of the state’s highest-profile political leaders — including both U.S. senators and the mayors of San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles — along with the editorial pages of most major newspapers, opposed the measure. PG&E, Apple and […]

BY CACTUS Fox News Warns What’s with Fox? On their website, they have this piece: Obama to Inherit Economy in Worst Crisis in 70 Years Barack Obama’s presidential election victory comes with an albatross of a prize — an economy beset by a stubborn housing slump and the worst financial crisis in 70 years. Even […]

Hat tip Economist View for Vox EU David Autor. Though heterogeneous, it is my contention that labour market intermediaries serve a common role. They address – and in some case exploit – a set of endemic departures of labour market operation from the first-best benchmark of full information, perfect competition, and decentralised price taking. Three […]