The post-New Deal Republican party has delivered endless strings of deficits and debt. That is their historic legacy to America, the bare fact on the ground that unfortunately requires endless repetition to impart the reality, and counter the tea-party fantasy of fiscally irresponsible Democrats.Also required is a catchy moniker that encapsulates that reality: Red-Ink Republicans […]
In response to this graphic in my reprised post from yesterday: Commenter rjs points us to this depressing Economist post — the government data source for this graphic has gone dark, part of the Obama administration’s cost-cutting measures. The real irony I discover, though, is to find right-wingers at The Heritage Foundation screaming about the […]
Nothing really new here, for some reason I ended up wandering back to this old post of mine, and — partially because the video at the end so kicks ass — can’t resist re-posting it over here for those who haven’t seen it. Red States Sucking the Federal Teat Just a reminder for all those […]
I hesitate to excerpt from this because it says it all so well and so briefly. But: …the more taxes the US government collects, the more money it loses. When the US government declines to sell a 10 year Treasury bill at a real rate interest rate of –0.57 percent it is agreeing to pay, […]
A lot of people out there seem to have the notion that Greece’s troubles are the result of laziness. That really doesn’t seem to be true. OECD: Average annual hours actually worked per worker 2000-2010 Germany 1473 1458 1445 1439 1442 1434 1430 1430 1426 1390 1419 Greece 2121 2121 2109 2103 2082 2086 2148 […]
Or: Chris Mooney Should Really Learn to Use Graphics More He’s got a great piece (“Reality Bites Republicans“) up over at The Nation on the rise of fact checkers, the perception that they’re bend-over-backward (or forward…) “even handed” in the face of blatant falsehood asymmetry, and long-term analysis of results from PolitiFact. But he also […]
Mike Konczal floats a very interesting idea emailed to him by Richard Clayton, the Research Director of Change To Win (my bold for quick scanning). under Section 14 b 1 the Fed has the authority to purchase any obligation of a state or local government of 6 months maturity or less. This provision seems clearly […]
Lots of excellent pushback against Jonathan Haidt’s crazy assertion that Republicans have become the party of working people. A great takedown by Larry Bartells, you can follow the rest from there. Haidt uses an awful lot of words, numbers, pictures, and general hand-waving to point out obscure the fact that white southern Democrats have gone […]
Andrew Oh-Willeke points us to this, on the job market for lawyers: Slightly more than half of the class of 2011 — 55 percent — found full-time, long-term jobs that require bar passage nine months after they graduated, according to employment figures released on June 18 by the American Bar Association. I couldn’t find a […]
Coming at this question from my typical perspective: a business owner facing a national economy. You run a mid-sized business selling high-quality furniture. You’ve developed a new chair that’s better than the other chairs on the market. (Think: the Herman Miller Aeron Chair.) Say you’re planning to sell it for $700. (You can’t sell it […]