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

Paul Ryan and Scott Walker Come Out for Repeal of Federal Child-Labor Laws, Because the Kids Insist. Coming soon: Talking polar bears pleading for more oil drilling.

Oh, my — not only was Paul Ryan’s hunger=dignity speech appalling on the merits, the anecdote he used to make his point was fake — a distortion of a real story with a completely different point. I’m actually not happy with this discovery; the crucial point here should be that even if the story of the kid who wants […]

Cash for Clunkers

Lifted from comments to Calculated Risks aside on cash for clunkers.  Spencer says: I get so tired of seeing people evaluate the cash of clunkers and ignoring the impact on auto inventories. During the cash for clunkers auto and light truck inventories fell from 2.7 months of sales to1.6 months of sales — the norm […]

Sure you wanna use those particular analogies, Gov. Christie?

OXON HILL, Md. – New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie gave a rousing speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference today taking on President Obama while stressing his own conservative credentials. Christie’s signature tough talking style was on full display when he took on Obama asking, “Mr. President, what the hell are we paying you for?” […]

Did the Fed Cause the Great Recession?

With the release of the Fed’s Open Market Committee Meeting minutes from 2008, it has been confirmed that the Fed was too concerned about inflation, and, to quote Marcus Nunes, “worse, the headline kind” leading into the 2008 crash.  The Market Monatarists cite this as evidence that the Fed was responsible for turning a potentially […]

Natural gas and the Ukraine

This piece in the New York Times caught my attention <a href=” http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/06/world/europe/us-seeks-to-reduce-ukraines-reliance-on-russia-for-natural-gas.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20140306″>US seeks to reduce Ukraine’s reliance on Russia for natural gas</a>.  It is a puff piece, but points to current conversation. From my reading it seems we would be shipping LNG to Germany and Europe?  There is only one facility able to do that […]

Two more on macro policy

Two more contributors to the revenue/tax cut conversation are Angry Bear’s jazzbumpa and New Economic Perspective‘s L. Randall Wray: Another look at Spending and Revenues JazzBumpa | January 31, 2013 9:00 pm This is more or less relevant to Beverly’s post from earlier today. How many times have you heard Boehner, McConnell, Ryan or one of […]

Macro policies on the economy…

Sometimes comments at Angry Bear and other sites get to resemble an exchange of slogans, statements of faith on particular macro economic policies using tax cuts and government spending as political stimulus rather than economic, and proof of validity premised on how forceful one is. At one time or another we all fall into that […]

Inescapable truths

Inescapable truths via The Economist points to the National Academies of Science and the Royal Society’s position on climate change: Feb 27th 2014, 15:12 by O.M. THE National Academies of Science (NAS) and the Royal Society—the elite scientific fellowships of America and Britain, respectively, respectively— released today a rather handy “Frequently Asked Questions” resource on climate change (http://royalsociety.org/policy/projects/climate-evidencecauses/). […]