A reader in comments asked why the Bears had not posted on Obama’s stimulus plan. Well, speaking for myself, that was mostly because we didn’t have a plan and still don’t. What we have is the shifting outline of a plan subject to negotiation between the Admin and the Congress, leaving no solid starting point […]
by Bruce Webb(UPDATE: this piece was not drawing any attention so I decided to move it under the fold and save some screen space. But the headline tells the story. He predicted the global slowdown and some specific events in S. Korea and got hauled away in handcuffs. Details below.)Prescient Young Blogger Did What S. […]
There has been a great deal of recent discussion insisting that the various New Deal programs did not get this country out of the Depression, only World War II did that. And no one that I know of argues that the level of unemployment right through the 30’s was not unacceptably high. But I want […]
by Bruce WebbA little antidote to Amity Shlaes and the other New Deal Deniers. From TPM Cafe J.K. Galbraith introduces Marshall Auerback The view that the New Deal was too small and accomplished little, that only WWII ended the Depression, is very widely held. But it is not correct. It is based on a mis-reading […]
Stuart Eugene Thiel is a retired lawyer and economics professor (at least he taught at Wash. St and DePaul U’s) who comments around the blogosphere here and there. But to me he will always be Prof. Pollkatz proprietor of a really fantastic polling website with a concentration on Bush approval as aggregated from 15 national […]
In recent days there has been a lot of gnashing of teeth among Social Security supporters at the prospect of even having Social Security on the table during next month’s economic summit. I gave a few reasons a couple days ago why we don’t need to let ‘fear itself’ rule us Obama and Social Security: […]
Or maybe I did. Given that Peter Orszag is incoming head of OMB and I am, well, me, odds are I am the one in error. But I can’t find it. Maybe someone here can help. This started as an exchange in comments on Is Obama Echoing Bush Andrew Biggs claims the following As for […]
Andrew Biggs thinks the answer is ‘Yes’ Obama Echoes Bush on Social Security and Barkley Rosser suspects he may be right Obama Drinks Social Security Kool-Aid. Each drawing his particular hope and fear from this WaPo article Obama Pledges Entitlement Reform: President-Elect Says He’ll Reshape Social Security, Medicare Programs Well I am STILL not worried […]
What are the odds that 2 standard deviations from outcome II always get you the same shape for I?1997 II.F62000 II.F62004 II.D72007 II.D7 Goldilocks and the Three Social Security BearsWhat are the odds that we get the first four results simply by variation from the median? Low Cost until 2007 meant fully funded but not […]
Give me some help here. With the 2003 Social Security Report the Trustees launched a new measure for evaluating the strength of their projections going forwards. And it can be found here: Appendix E. STOCHASTIC PROJECTIONS 1. BackgroundThe Trustees Report has traditionally shown additional estimates using a low cost and a high cost set of […]