rdan The following is the meme on the deficits for many Republicans. I do not recall any CBO thoughts being quoted so forcefully and completely on the budget by a Republican…or even mentioned much…in years. Supporters are tossing out the meme, usually with no numbers or per centages and a comparison. Prove it Mr. McCain, […]

Robert Waldmann This post about a post by Matthew Yglesias was, in part, motivated by a post by Ezra Klein on how he should’t care how many comments a post gets. I have noticed that posts with titles including either “soak the rich” or “Social Security” get lots of comments. I don’t want to horn […]

by Bruce Webb Social Security is typically discussed in static terms, that is it ‘will’ or ‘is projected’ to get to this state or that at some fixed point in the future. This I think is an artifact of ‘crisis’ being seen as the result of a known fixed event, namely Boomer Retirement. And it […]

rdan Associated Press carries some news on our perceptions and priorities. Now who HAS the money for more drugs…especially cocaine? Oh the irony! CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Want government assistance? Just say no to drugs. Lawmakers in at least eight states want recipients of food stamps, unemployment benefits or welfare to submit to random drug testing. […]

A heartfelt congratulations to the United State of Georgia (from whose namesake “University of” I got my Finance MBA), which today passed California in the battle for Most Failed Banks (9 v 8) in the past year. In fairness, California did not have a failure until July, while Georgia waited until August. The two states […]

Robert Waldmann “All for ourselves and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of” [the universe] Note the placement of the close quotation mark and no peeking please. Adam Smith (1776) “The Wealth of Nations.” Book III Chapter 4.

Robert Waldmann Non-Standard Monetary Policy Robert Lucas on Non-Standard Monetary Policy 2008 A dead end? Not at all. The Fed can satisfy the demand for quality by using reserves — or “printing money” — to buy securities other than Treasury bills. This is the way the $600 billion got out into the private sector. This […]

Robert Waldmann The Kid has dropped his mask (he’s been hinting at this for years but … 95% !!!!) What if we had a 95 percent marginal tax rate on income over $10 million? What dire consequences would flow from this? Perhaps a certain outflow of top-flight baseball talent to Japan. But I don’t see […]

rdan Jeffrey Sachs at Huffington Post has a good take on Geithner and Summers as well.