Go. Read. Express Sympathy. Suggest he to donate the speaking fee to CEPR or the EPI.

John Carney at Dealbreaker notes the official reason the White House prefers that the government takeover Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: The reason the Bush administration is leaning toward bringing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship rather than backstopping the two home mortgage companies is that concern about moral hazard problem. Bailing out Fannie […]

So the good news yesterday (h/t Felix) is that, even as he was voting to eviscerate the Fourth Amendment, Barack Obama urged a change to bankruptcy law. The devil is in the details (the “median cost” of a home in NY State won’t keep anyone living in their house in Westchester or even Rockland County, […]

In honor of this post (from another blog whose political posts I’ve stopped reading; Hilzoy is in good company*), I have decided today to shave off my beard and mustache.** After all, David (“Axis of Evil”) Frum is always right, as John Holbo originally documented: This sentiment or intuition or feeling (whatever you call it) […]

From me, at least, goes to Hilzoy and the off-my-reading-list-for-politics Obsidian Wings: while I’d ordinarily assume that economists signing on to “John McCain’s plan” were signing on to the actual document he had released, the fact that those 300 names were released within hours made me wonder whether all of them had had a chance […]

I don’t like talking about stocks. I believe the market is rigged, that the allocations do not favor the investor who is not also a senior executive of the company and/or a member of the Board of Directors, and that reported profits and losses on a quarterly basis is a lousy way to run a […]

Tyler Cowen takes a premise of Arnold Kling’s: My guess is that most of the younger (aged 30-34) highly-educated folks are children of two highly-educated parents. My guess is that many of the older (aged 55-59) highly-educated folks are children of a college-educated father but not a college-educated mother. I don’t think we have a […]

UPDATE: Brad DeLong lists some of the Usual Suspects who are Not in the Line-up. John McCain’s 300 economists who support his Jobs for America Plan (via Tyler Cowen, non-sociopath, who provides an appropriate context for the list) includes one person, an Ike Brannon, whose affiliation is listed as “Department of the Treasury” and who, […]

For those who don’t want to try to read about John McCain’s 2 – 1 = 7 calculations, a couple of interesting links. It’s missing the appropriate equations, so I suspect a few of the simplifying assumptions are skewed, and he doesn’t mention that the industry in question has always been at the forefront of […]

The Most Trusted Name in News: Former secretaries of state James Baker III and Warren Christopher say the next time the president goes to war, Congress should be required to say whether it agrees. The co-chairmen of a bipartisan study group have proposed legislation that would require the president to consult lawmakers before initiating combat […]