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

Elizabeth Warren exclusive

rdan Elizabeth Warren of the Congressional Oversight Committee for TARP, and champion of an active voice for consumer protection regulation, offers her thoughts in Real Change: Turning up the heat on non-bank lenders with one of her latest essays at New Deal 2.0, part of the Roosevelt Institution. We have watched regulation slip away, which […]

Medicare Bleg

Robert Waldmann finds himself more than usually ignorant about a topic which interests him (hard as that is to believe). Medicare has a budget shortfall of present value of a whole whole lotta dough. This tends to make people worry, and makes many believe that benefits will be cut by the health care reform bills. […]

employment report

By Spencer The employment report was discouraging. In contrast to last month when the leading indicators of employment appeared to be stabilizing,they resumed their downtrend this month. Most importantly, hours worked fell o.3% from an upward revised 99.2 to 98.9. the best that can be said about this now is that the rate of decline […]

The pre-labor report labor reports

Rebecca Let’s investigate these pre-BLS reports. There are many job reports out there, but here are some of the biggies that come out right before the official government BLS employment situation (not a coincidence). Monster Employment Index (not seasonally adjusted) – an index geared toward online recruiting trends. Challenger job cuts (not seasonally adjusted) – […]

What about me!

by divorced one like Bush So I’ve been thinking: What, since the passage of Medicare has the federal government implemented that actually reduced the risk of living for the US citizen? No, tax cuts do not count. They do not reduce risk. We have reduced risk for business all over the place. NAFTA, CAFTA, exemption […]

Triggers and Secs 111-116 of HR3200

by Bruce Webb DC and the blogosphere are all over the resurrection of the Public Option Trigger, the idea that with the right legislation the insurance companies would just straighten up and fly right. Most of the Left is pretty cynical about the idea and rightly so given the insurance companies several decade pattern on […]

Why Is The Placebo Effect Getting Stronger ?

Robert Waldmann An article with that title by Steve Silverman in Wired is getting a lot of attention. I actually know a little bit about the placebo effect and depression. Lo and behold, Silverman’s key example is the effect of placebos on depression. He briefly mentions two issues which I would like to discuss at […]

Insanity in the White House

Robert Waldmann Or are they crazy like foxes ? I think Ezra Klein is being played. At least I sure hope he’s being played. Klein is in contact with the White House. Unsurprisingly, he reports that there is a bitter debate over health care reform inside the Obama administration. There are clear hints of this […]

Health Care and Election Timelines

by Bruce Webb Both sides of the Health Care debate are looking and or calculating at the effects on future elections, will including a public option play in Peoria? This I think is to misunderstand the timelines because for most people the initial passage of reform really doesn’t change anything for the next two election […]