Well, this is a politics and economics blog, so I need some rationalization for celebrating Sixteen years, sixteen banners united… (I sadly note for the record that, unlike Brad DeLong, I did not try to avoid finding a Dylan version of a Dylan song—there just wasn’t one on YouTube.)

It was only last week when liberal pundits were more alert.  Well, some of them weren’t—after all, we’re talking about people identified as “liberal” by those who consider Ross Douthat and David Brooks to be mainstream. What some of them knew about Arizona, all of them appear to have forgotten about PPACA. The Supreme Court […]

We’re catching up on some DVR viewing. Tonight’s episode was Lewis Black’s In God We Rust, which was released on St. Patrick’s Day but taped back when people could still believe Michelle Bachmann was a contender for the 2012 Republican nomination. It was filmed not earlier—and probably not later—than 7 May 2011. Why do I […]

I’m not usually one to defend Facebook. Yes, I “use” it—it has more of my high school classmates as members than Classmates does—but it’s getting increasingly difficult to block Games from feeds, the adverts are cluttered, and the view doesn’t seem to optimise based on the screen I use. In short, it’s not trying too […]

Sadly, probably not. But it’s the voice those of us Of A Certain Age remember better than the Stigwood Era: RIP, Robin Gibb.

The only reasonable conclusion is that Greg Sargent should resign from the Washington Post  before it finishes destroying his brain. Give Sargent credit: he knows Mitt Romney is lying, and he calls him out on it, which—especially for the denizens of “Fox on 15th”—is as close to truth as you get outside of Sarah Kliff’s […]

Stan Collender notes that, for the first time in four years, the U.S. Treasury reported a surplus in the month of April.  It isn’t just that there was a surplus in April of 2008, though.  If you look back through Aprils (data here), the last time that month showed a deficit is 1983—the April less […]

…I would not be likely to find them.  But at least I know how to look. Start at the macro level and see if there is a noticeable shift in revenues: Source: BEA I decided that anything that didn’t have at least a 0.3% change in its effect on GDP over three years could not […]

by Mike Kimel In my lifetime, the following Presidents have run for re-election:  Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, GHW Bush, Clinton, GW Bush, and now, Obama.  What is striking about this list is that of this crowd, only three:  Nixon, Reagan and Clinton appeared to be at all successful by the time they started running for […]

Note: This post originally appeared, in slightly different form, at the author’s personal blog, Diogenes of Brooklyn. It appears here with that blogger’s kind permission. He does talk in the third person sometimes. by Diogenes of Brooklyn Like most Americans, Diogenes knows nothing of economics and finance. But quite a lot about the ways that […]