Today, “Economist’s View showcased Paul Krugman’s latest NYT article“Veterans and Zombies”. Paul discusses how the hyped-up VA issues are being used as an example of under performing government healthcare to emphasize how bad the much larger PPACA healthcare reform could be if allowed to proceed. Of course this is not true; but both Mark and […]

Anecdotal evidence, the basis of so much journalism prior to the rise of the data movement and still, to my mind, over-relied upon — is just that: anecdotal. Roughly 65,000 people voted in the Cantor-Brat primary; Brat won by more than 7,200 votes. Assuming that what a non-scientific sample  of 1, 10 or even 100 […]

Sandwichman at Econospeak points us to common threads in a blast from the past: Economic science: “this magazine of untruth” The complaint one makes against that anti-social jargon, which so easily passes for economic science, is that it is in ludicrous opposition to the common observation of facts. Political economy professes to be a science […]

Simon-Wren Lewis at Mainly Macro is on target with the term ‘privatization’ as a way to ‘save’ money and add ‘efficiency’.  Of course no slogan making the claim can begin with ‘it depends…’: Privatisation and government debt Possibly the worst argument for privatizing part of the public sector is a supposed ‘need’ to reduce public […]

If you have been watching the ongoing saga unfolding in Wisconsin on Governor Scott Walker and his recall election and election shenanigans, it probably comes as no surprise there was fire where there was smoke. “Prosecutors allege Gov. Scott Walker was at the center of an effort to illegally coordinate fund” raising among conservative groups […]

Warming slowdown? WHAT warming slowdown? A result of discussions at: Part one was mentioned at Angry Bear a few weeks ago. Here is Azimuth…part 2

The mortgage servicing abuses continue: by Yves Smith   Repeated Foreclosures on an On-Time Borrower Demonstrates Failure to Fix Servicing and Fallacy of “Save Banks at All Costs” Policy It was obvious at the time of the various mortgage “settlements” that the Administration’s policy was to make only cosmetic fixes in a badly broken servicing […]

This is the companion first post to the Emperor Hadrian quote (lifted from comments h/t BW) here: Not Mincing Words In today’s USA Today, James Webb (“Secretary of the Navy during the Reagan administration, and a Marine platoon and company commander in Vietnam”) leads with some harsh criticism of Kerry, paticularly Kerry’s involvement with Vietnam […]

Uh-oh, hedge fund managers and Goldman Sachs partners.  Obviously, few of you are evangelical Christians.  So this guy, who wants good markets, has his sights set on you.  But, luckily not on that carried-interest tax-benefit thing y’all get to use, praise the Lord. So maybe you hedge-fund types can skip church again this Sunday, after […]