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

From: ASPCA To: Me

From: ASPCA Today at 10:41 AM To: me We’re so close to our goal. Unsubscribe | View Online | Please add website@em.aspca.org to your contacts. Dear Beverly,Earlier this week we sent an email about a last-minute tax deduction, and the response we received was more than we ever could have hoped for: Thousands of animal-lovers all around the country donated to help […]

Marginal producers of oil?

Yves Smith adds her thoughts on possibilities of the market price decline for oil: When the Saudis announced their intention not to support oil prices when they were sliding towards $90 and plunged quickly through that level, we deemed the move to be a masterstroke. It served to damage both economic and political enemies. On […]

Dean Baker on part time employment

Lifted from comments: Dean Baker adds a comment on Spencer England’s post on Part time employment statistics being (Spencer writes…”John R. Graham is a beautiful example of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing. The researchers at the right wing think tanks scour the economic releases for anything that they can spin to sell their […]

On Williamson on Waldmann

Stephen Williamson wrote a critique of this post which critique was praised by David Andolfato and Noah Smith. Williamson critiques the Keynesianism defined as So, as I learned from Dick Lipsey in 1975, and my cat learned last fall, Keynesian Cross is (1) C = A + cY, (2) Y = C + I + […]

Krugman, 1980 And All That

Dan here…Paul Krugman New York Times Dec. 24 notes Robert’s thinking on current story lines by some economists in macromedia.  Other posts by Robert on the subject can be found here, here, here, and here.  Krugman writes:  Robert Waldmann is shocked, shocked, to find conservative economists not doing their homework: Even now, I am shocked that economists didn’t bother to […]

Magical Thinking and the Paranoid Style

Guest Post by Mark Jamison, a retired Postmaster in North Carolina. The Rightwing echo chamber has gone nuts at the comments of Jonathon Gruber, comments that were, at the least insensitive and more than a little cynical. Gruber’s assertions that the American public was not very bright and had to be tricked into accepting Obamacare […]

The Oil Choke Collar: 2015 may be the acid test

http://bonddad.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-oil-choke-collar-2015-may-be-acid.html The Oil Choke Collar: 2015 may be the acid test – by New Deal democrat It’s nice to be proven right.  Even more, it’s nice to be proven right, for the right reason. Back in 2011, I described what I called the “Oil choke collar,” writing: For the second time in two years, Oil’s […]

Pensions, Social Security

Holiday present for you via Congress and the Cromnibus. Tucked into the massive spending bill Congress passed this weekend was legislation that reversed 40 years of federal law protecting retirees’ pensions.  The change will allow benefit cuts for up to 10 million workers, many of them part of a shrinking middle-class workforce in businesses such […]