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

Is Israel on Deadline? or Who will Control Iraqi Airspace in 2012?

by Bruce Webb A little over a year ago I put up the following map from Cordesman and Toukan’s Study on a Possible Israeli Strike on Iran’s Nuclear Development Facilities “ A year later and this issue is back in the headlines and specifically in association with the publication by the uber-Likudnik Jeffrey Goldberg’s article […]

Restoring Affordability

by reader Ilsm Restoring AffordabilityWaste, Unneeded Programs Hinder ModernizationBy ASHTON CARTER Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition Technology and LogisticsPublished: 19 July 2010 Read the whole article at Defense News Ashton Carter says: “The department spends approximately $700 billion annually for our country’s defense. About $300 billion of this is spent inside the department, on […]

In Which I Worry about the swimming pools of Casey Mulligan and Greg Mankiw

Tim Duy takes a gracious lead pipe to silly analysis: It really makes one understand why the public often dismisses academics as out of touch in their ivory towers. One has to imagine that neither Mulligan nor Mankiw ever held a real summer job. Nor, apparently, have they looked at any other nonseasonally adjusted data. […]

The Non-Relationship Between Interest Rates and the Money Supply, Part 2

by Mike Kimel The Non-Relationship Between Interest Rates and the Money Supply, Part 2Cross-posted at the Presimetrics Blog. This post is a bit less about Presidents than usual, but its a follow-up to last week’s post on the non-relationship between the money supply and interest rates. (That post appeared both at the Presimetrics and Angry […]

Welcome to the World of the “New Normal”, UK Style

Marshall Auerback is a Senior Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, and a market analyst and commentator.crossposted with New Deal 2.0 Welcome to the World of the “New Normal”, UK Style Calling high unemployment the “new normal” is a lazy way to cover up poor fiscal policy. We are now starting to see the economic impact […]

Extrajudicial killing

H.R.6010 To prohibit the extrajudicial killing of United States citizens, and for other purposes proposed by Rep. Dennis Kucinich and only five others. The bill seems reasonable…does the executive branch, and more probably intelligence branch of the executive branch, have the explicit permission to assassinate US citizens on its own authority, without review of Congress? […]

America’s Biggest Jobs Program — the U.S. Military

Robert Reich lays out some figures for the military jobs programs both in manpower and hardware: America’s biggest — and only major — jobs program is the U.S. military. Over 1,400,000 Americans are now on active duty; another 833,000 are in the reserves, many full time. Another 1,600,000 Americans work in companies that supply the […]

The compensationless recovery

New York Times David Leonhardt argues that real wages are rising, so those resilient workers that remain employed will benefit from the bounce-back in “effective pay”. The problem with this insight is twofold: first, the expansion phase of real hourly compensation, a broader measure of total earnings, is falling; and second, sitting atop a mountain […]