Doktor Zoom at Wonkette reports on the delightful and important consequences of the foolish decision by Rep Cathy McMorris Rogers (R-WA) to ask the public to report Obamacare horror stories on her facebook page. Matthew Yglesias found it too. Facebook isn’t reality (warning to the kids who might be ready) but it can be cruel […]

The big news is that expanded access to Medicaid causes increased diagnosis of diabetes which presumably causes better health in the not so distant future. Google is impressed. I quote Sabrina Tavernise in The New York Times The number of new diabetes cases identified among poor Americans has surged in states that have embraced the […]

I commented on Brad DeLong commenting on Dean Baker asking Brad Delong a challenging question. Brad decided my comment belonged on his front page, so I guess it belongs here too. Baker wrote Brad DeLong tells us that he is moving away from the cult of the financial crisis (the weakness of the economy in […]

Fed’s interest earnings approach $100b WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve said Friday it transferred a record $96.9 billion to the U.S. treasury in 2014, profits on its unprecedented $4.4 trillion in holdings designed to support the U.S. economy in the aftermath of the Great Recession. Returning to a topic I have raised a few times […]

Guest post by MARK JAMISON via Save the Post Office Epic Fail for the Postal Service: The wrong model and the wrong BOG In 2001 Postmaster General Bill Henderson submitted the first blueprints for a transformation of the Postal Service into a sleeker, more efficient business entity.  To justify the transformation, the rhetoric has repeated […]

Guest Post by MARK JAMISON at Save The Post Office Who owns the post office?  Who is the post office designed to serve?  What is the system’s ultimate function? These questions are fundamental to the future and the fate of the post office, the postal network, and postal services in this country. How we answer […]

I was intrigued by a very puzzling tweet (by @billmon1) which noted that Jonathan Chait had compared Benjamin Netanyahu to Yasser Arafat. I thought that a very odd comparison as they don’t seem similar to me, except for the part about participating in negotiotiations but never actually accepting a final peace agreement. But I now […]

Alice Rivlin has a wonderful speech about Fiscal & Monetary Policy in a Post-inflation World. Her basic point among many keen insights is that financial instability should be more of a priority now than inflation. I agree with her. Monetary policy should focus on the wild beasts of the economy, not the domesticated pets. Inflation […]