rdan Trade policy debate begins in Pennsylvania? America’s economy is now struggling to recover from the Great Recession. But even when the economy was said to be humming, it did not work for most Americans. Wages were stagnant or declining and the costs of basics – health care, housing, college – were soaring. Growth was […]

by reader coberly Andrew Biggs wrote that current Medicare recipients have not paid enough for the benefits they will recieve. He states that “since this is zero sum, it means that future taxpayers will get less than they pay for.” Here is an excerpt of what he said, followed by my comments. Biggs said: unlike […]

By divorced one like Bush It seems to go without saying, that if there is reform, there will be some type of assistance for those who need it. Some numbers are bandied about as to the cutoff points. The Mass Connector has it’s formula up that you can play with by punching in your own […]

rdan H/T Naked Capitalism for this New York Times article concerning the loan program established in May to help small businesses as part of the stimulus program. With $255 million, the program is prepared to make about 10,000 loans of up to $35,000 each. As of Monday, the agency reported that only 1,127 loans, totaling […]

by Bruce Webb No not ‘tweeted’, this is a whole new verb. In a post yesterday Ken directed us to a debunking by Milt Shook of a list of talking points by Alan Caruba. Milt’s piece at his blog Please… Cut the Crap is here: Deconstructing Right Wing Lies. Important stuff and I’ll get back […]

Robert Waldmann This is an extraordinarily good article by Washington Post standards.OK I’m biased. The topic is how great my dad Thomas Waldmann MD is, but it is really a good article. In particular, when explaining what is so extraordinary about my dad it addresses an important issue of general interest. “Carrying out clinical studies […]

by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt Co-ops. Workable? The compromise to the “public plan,” as Robert points out in an earlier post, is the creation of co-ops (Robert wants to set up one giant co-op, which of course is his way of saying we should set up the “public option” whatever we call it). But suppose […]

a cross post by Susan of Texas Innovation Like many other pundits with good employer-provided health insurance, Megan McArdle has decided the rest of the country cannot have any type of national health care or insurance. She has given many reasons: rationing will kill your granny, drug companies need to charge the US more to […]

Ken Houghton remembers that Warren Buffett famously groused that he pays a lower percentage of his income in taxes than his secretary. Or the person who will come up with an actual cure for a cancer. Mark Cuban takes this one step further, pointing out the obvious: if we want to promote investment, “we should […]