by cactus Dean Baker on Autoworkers Pay… Plus Helping Banks One flaw in this blog, if you ask me, is that we don’t link to Dean Baker enough. He generally covers a lot of material in a short amount of space, and is right more often than he’s wrong. So if y’all keep your mouths […]

As President Obama issues executive orders and presents bills to Congress, Angry Bears will respond, or guests will post. However, such changes appear to be happening so quickly I am sure we cannot keep up. Readers should feel free to leave a link here in comments for us to check regularly and develop ideas for […]

rdan GAO has a report on regulation deficiencies of financial markets: Several key changes in financial markets and products in recent decades have highlighted significant limitations and gaps in the existing regulatory system. • First, regulators have struggled, and often failed, to mitigate the systemic risks posed by large and interconnected financial conglomerates and to […]

by cactus A Country in a Hostile Region(updated version of post) Say there’s a country sitting in a hostile area. A big part of the hostility has to do with religion – the greater part of the country’s population has a faith different than that of the neighboring countries, and which is somewhat despised by […]

rdan The Financial Times offers some thoughts on the Fed’s exit strategy when the economy begins to improve. This question was asked in comments in relation to the advisability of government intervention at all due to the lack of thought to ending the intervention. (Returning the control back to private banking).

rdan The Second Report of the Congressional Oversight Panel of January 9, 2009 from the Oversight Committee for TARP makes for beginning reading. Mostly unanswered questions, but no surprise. If no subpoenas are needed Elizabeth Warren who heads the committee may get more answers to sensible questions over time.

by cactus A Further Critique of Romer and Romer Let’s take another look at the main Romer and Romer findings, namely that under some circumstances, tax cuts are good for economic growth. In the past I noted I have a few problems with it, but I thought I’d let the Romers work speak for itself […]

Digital History has an interesting note on WPA history, and the equivalent FDR spent on such projects. Work crews were criticized for spending days moving leaf piles from one side of the street to the other. Unions went on strike to protest the program’s refusal to pay wages equal to those of the private sector. […]

Post lifted from Barkley Rosser at Econospeak How Bruce Webb And I Helped Save Social Security (Maybe) A few days ago Obama was quoted as saying that “getting entitlement spending under control” would be part of the effort to deal with budgetary problems. Most think he is focusing on getting rising medical care costs under […]

rdan Obama offers These estimates show that all components of the program make important contributions to job creation. The direct spending programs have the largest job bang for the buck. State fiscal relief also has important direct and indirect effects on jobs, and so very strong job bang for the buck. Tax cuts, though they […]