Dan here…Taking a look back to 2009: Geithner’s Baa Humbug to Jobs and Labor 12/25/2009 (h/t Run75441) “Ebenezer: Since you ask me what I wish sir, that is my answer. I help to support the establishments I have named; those who are badly off must go there.” Daniel Gross at Slate interviews Tim Geithner here: […]

The Northwest Plan for a Real Social Security Fix was first introduced and revised in 2009. Obviously it was never adopted. Still the basic mechanism remains the same as does the rationale and working assumptions and in what follows I am going to assume a certain knowledge of the mechanics of Social Security finance and […]

The Northwest Plan for a Real Social Security Fix was introduced and then revised in 2009, explaining why the post link references ‘Vers 2.0’. What makes the NW Plan ‘real’ is that it is both permanent and contingent. To explain this mild paradox lets take an analogy. Let’s say you have a 1935 Duesenberg that […]

Contrary to what you might think, this new survey says that 69% of Republicans think that climate change is a “somewhat” or “very” serious threat. Table 3. Perception that climate change is a threat among Democrats (N=377), Republicans (N=306), Independents (N=389), and overall U.S. population (N=1089) in January 2013. Columns may not add to 100 […]

Well, I am pretty much done for the day with work…I guess a post called Blizzard Musings is coming up!

Stormy writes (lifted from an e-mail):Some developing nations are winners: France, England…others, the U.S. are very big losers. Banks take a hefty cut… Migrants billions overshadow aid.  This article is an interesting sidebar to the global economy, enormously powerful and consequential. Worth reading and thinking about. From the The Guardian For decades it was a largely unnoticed […]

By request of frequent AB commenter and SS contrarian Bruce Krasting. He claims vindication of claims from four years ago that the Trust Funds would top out at a much lower level than then estimated. And there is some support to be had here. Also lots of numbers and data points. I’ll have my say […]

And the plain fact is that Obama has reiterated that the same spending and entitlement cuts he offered in 2011 are still on the table, even irking his own base in the process. — Greg Sargent, this morning That really surprised me, so I clicked the link Sargent offers, which turns out to be to […]

In the Comments thread yesterday to my Uwe-Reinhardt-For-Labor-Secretary post, an old fellow “Frayster” (definition: Someone who posted regularly to Slate’s wonderful, late, great “Fray” comments board), Woolley, wrote: I don’t know anything about Uwe and after reading your piece, I still don’t know anything about [him]. Can you tell us why [he] is such a […]

Jake at Polymic points us to news today: John Brennan gets interrogated. President Obama’s nominee for head of the CIA will face the Senate at 2:30 p.m. today for his confirmation hearing. Brennan has come under criticism for supporting torture while serving in the Bush administration, and his support for drone strikes as President Obama’s […]