Forget that being-worth-a-thousand-words thing. The picture and its caption in this Krugman blog post are … priceless.  (I just about fell out of my chair when I saw that.  And, five minutes later, I’m still laughing.)

As Greg Sargent pointed out this morning, the new “it” gimmick of the pox-on-both-houses punditry is to borrow National Journal editorial something-or-other Ron Fournier’s tac of pretending that Obama can order the military to invade the House of Representatives and hold its members at assault-weapon-point until they agree to a grand bargain.  Or at least […]

Here’s what risk looks like: Having to tell your six-year-old son that you don’t have a birthday present for him because you didn’t have any money left after buying food for the week. Telling your daughter she has to attend the semi-shitty local community college instead of the awesome out-of-state school where she was accepted […]

Two weeks ago, Linda posted a terrific, detailed post on the Camp hearings in the House Ways and Means Committee–which is not known for kumbaya, despite the chairman’s surname–on the possibility of ending or curtailing the tax deduction for charitable donations.  The hearings apparently were surprisingly serious in tone and nature, from what I could […]

Via Truthout Dean Baker points to continuing insistent of President Obama to keep Social Security ‘on the table’. Dean Baker has a take on some numbers surrounding the politics and stories politicans offer: While most of the DC insiders probably don’t understand the chained CPI, everyone else should recognize that this technical fix amounts to […]

by Linda Beale Private equity and real estate managers get a “costly and unjust [tax] perk” Through a process of Wall Street interpretation of the law and the “Wall Street Rule” (that says that the government tax administration will have great difficulty gainsaying an interpretation of the tax laws that lots of high-powered–read “wealthy”–Wall Street […]

by Tom aka Rusty RustbeltHealth Care Thoughts: Essential Benefit RegulationsThe final regulations were published on “essential benefits.” No major surprises. The best summary I can find is at:http://www.healthinsurance.org/blog/2013/02/22/hhs-gets-specific-on-acas-essential-benefits/

This post will be long, fairly wonky, and confused.  I am typing, because I just have  to stop playing with FRED and write something.   My claim is that expected inflation over the next 5 (and 10 and 20) years is very similar to actual inflation over the past year.  I think the data generally […]

In followup to this post of mine from earlier today, I want to point out Ezra Klein’s post from last night titled “On the sequester, the American people ‘moved the goalposts’.” It begins: I don’t agree with my colleague Bob Woodward, who says the Obama administration is “moving the goalposts” when they insist on a […]