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

@ilduce2016 #FF

You owe it to yourself to read “How We Fooled Donald Trump Into Retweeting Benito Mussolini” True genius expressed through the limited limited medium of twitter. Orwell would have been proud. Also Will Rogers, Moliere and Aristophanes. Our Fascist bot was anything but subtle. It was, after all, directly named after Mussolini. The New York […]

The Koch Brothers Read Angry Bear! [links fixed]

Yep.  As I said, a monkey could beat Rubio in the general election.  So maybe the Republicans should urge a monkey to run as a third-party candidate.  Someone who works for the Koch brothers’ super PAC, maybe? — Me, here, Feb. 24 OMG! Okay, if you think the timing of this is a coincidence you are […]

Tracking Labor Share & Unemployment

In May of 2015, I wrote about the relationship between Labor Share and Unemployment. The post basically said that lower labor share translated into a higher limit upon unemployment. Here is the original graph from that post… In the post, I wrote… “The graph implies that as labor share falls, labor is less inclined to […]

Democrats and Progressives need to accept the likelihood that their nominee will be facing Trump in November. And they need to seriously consider what that actually means. [Edited. Cringe-inducing cut-and-paste typo corrected**.]

— Clinton [at a CNN-sponsored town hall last night in South Carolina] promised to go hard after Wall Street. The former Secretary of State faced criticism in a different department: her failure to release transcripts of paid speeches given to Goldman Sachs. “Sure, I’ll do it if everybody else does,” the former Secretary demurred, circling back to a familiar refrain […]

R’s Supreme Court Boycott & Trump: How is That Going to Work Out for Them?

What if it is Trump? Or Trump vs. Clinton? Or Trump vs. Clinton vs. Bloomberg? What’s the end game for the McConnell-Grassley Triple No Strategy on the Court? Can they really rely on a President Trump or a President Bloomberg actually going with a Scalia Federalist Society Originalist type? Are the really willing to go […]

Paul Krugman Hits It Home [Updated]

And let me say that the great thing about a progressive agenda is that it doesn’t require big growth promises to make it work, because the elements of that agenda are good things in their own right. Conservatives need to promise miracles to justify policies whose direct effect is to comfort the comfortable (cutting taxes […]

China’s Vulnerable External Balance Sheet

by Joseph Joyce China’s Vulnerable External Balance Sheet China’s capital outflow last year is estimated to have totaled $1 trillion. Money has been channeled out of China in various ways, including individuals carrying cash, the purchase of foreign assets, the alteration of trade invoices and other more indirect ways. The monetary exodus has pushed the […]