Via Alternet: New data reveals our public—not private—school system is among the best in the world. In fact, except for the debilitating effects of poverty, our public school system may be the best in the world. The most recent data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reveal that the U.S. ranked high, relative […]

Guest post by Nathan Salminen (is a lawyer and an amateur economic and political researcher. Nathan has been politically active for many years, including working for the Senate Committee on the Judiciary as a law clerk. Nathan currently practices law in New York and runs Politics that work.) Dan here…this is the second part to […]

Dan here…When in Fort Lauderdale, FL to visit a son and his girlfriend this Christmas, I ran into the phenomenon of ‘lots of stuff’ as they furnished their new apartment. Both real estate turnover and ‘used furniture’ were thriving industries, I assume partly from the turnover of ‘snowbirds’ and younger folk offering services to this […]

by Barkley Rosser at Econospeak Has The Oil Price Drop Come To An End? Very likely. Reports from November report that the Saudi government has been preparing its budget for the price of oil to be between $45 and $50 per barrel.  The price rose during the last two days and fell slightly today, with […]

Gail Tverberg offers her view on possible ramifications of the severe drop in prices for oil and  debt financed growth: There are really two different problems that a person can be concerned about: Peak oil: the possibility that oil prices will rise, and because of this production will fall in a rounded curve. Substitutes that […]

PGL at Econospeak points us to declining expenditures for education: …Bill McBride has been leading the discussion on state fiscal austerity including this from a few months ago: the public sector has declined significantly since Mr. Obama took office (down 657,000 jobs). These job losses have mostly been at the state and local level, but more recently at […]