Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Proposed Financial Overhaul Bill

Rdan How does Congress keep track of such things, if at all, and again who reads these things except those willing to be wonks or lobbyists? Sen. Chris Dodds Proposed Financial Overhaul Bill can be found at the link. Huffington Post notes that de novo is back from Treasury: Despite bipartisan consensus on Capitol Hill […]

More Cautionary Stuff from Generals

Gen. Anthony Zinni, USMC, (Ret.) Remarks at CDI Board of Directors Dinner, May 12, 2004 And what I thought I would do tonight is go through the ten crucial mistakes to this point that we’ve made. Because I think it helps frame what, in fact, has happened over time … and is going to be […]

Crowding Out, Social Security, and the Military Industrial Complex

by Bruce Webb In the course of an exchange between me and a fellow Bear, the question arose if social spending had a crowding out effect on other social spending. In particular if we have a small problem in Social Security and a big problem in providing health care would solving the first problem put […]

Dubai’s work force…a side note on current events

Rdan No Sweat adds another facet to the crisis in Dubai…mobility of labor and wages. I cannot imagine what conditions are like to produce a strike in this city. If the players default in high finance, do they go to debtors’ prison like most everyone else? An estimated 700,000 Asians, mostly from India, Pakistan and […]

Welfare vs Social Insurance in the USA

Robert Waldmann Among experts, there is a widespread view that people in the USA support social insurance an oppose welfare. It is a fact that they support social security old age and disability pensions and hated AFDC. It is suspected that describing social security as a pension plan with mandatory participation is part of the […]

Inflation Detour II: Crisis and Recovery across Great "Fluctuations"

We are now almost 24 months into the Great Recession. While many expect NBER will eventually say that The Great Recession ended several months ago, they have not yet. By contrast, the recession that began The Great Depression, per NBER, lasted 43 months. It seems only fair to compare the two, so I trust I […]

The Great Trade Collapse…VoxEU

Richard Baldwin at VoxEU introduces a new book on “great trade collapse” before the WTO meeting occurring shortly. Re-posted with attribution: The Great Trade Collapse World trade experienced a sudden, severe and synchronised collapse in late 2008 – the sharpest in recorded history and deepest since WWII. VoxEU today posts a new Ebook – written […]