by Linda Beale The Deficit Commission Ever since Alice Rivlin spoke here at Wayne about her role on the upcoming Deficit Commission and her belief that we must cut entitlements, I have been worried. This seems like the same center-right coalition to undo the New Deal that has been rampaging in the country for four […]

Jacob Weisberg wrote The assumption that the rating agencies knew their business, a key enabler of the subprime meltdown, is analogous to the view before the Iraq war that Saddam Hussein had WMD. There are a lot of people now who scoff about what an obvious fallacy that was and not many who can point […]

by Linda Beale published on ataxingmatter April 28 Financial reform–the GOP’s “chicken game”; and is it hedging or casino betting when banks go short on products they have created/sold to customers? Edited to add additional links 4/28/10 at 5:35pm As the GOP blocked progress on the Senate finance bill for a third time (56-42) in […]

In all the discussions of the real GDP release I did not see this comparison, and I thought it should be made. So far real GDP has increased 2.7% as compared to an average of 4.3% in recoveries since 1950. The range is from a high of 6.8% in 1958 to a low of 1.5% […]