Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

The 1996 Welfare reform bill hits again

Max Ehrenfreund and Roberto Ferdman report the latest news in today’s Washington Post Tens of thousands of Americans just lost their food stamps A 20-year-old rule that was suspended in many places during the recession requires that adults without children or disabilities have a job to receive food stamps for more than three months, and […]

Dynamic Inefficiency

This is a post about macroeconomic theory. It is technical and I honestly don’t know how much is already in the literature. The aim is to address an important policy question — is public debt a burden on future generations. It is possible in theory that the answer is no and that higher public debt […]

More to the Story on Killing the VHA

run75441: Ater I posted my article on the VA, it received a comment from Suzanne Gordon who writes on healthcare and has covered VA healthcare at her blog and also at American Prospect; Unfriendly Fire Fall 2015. Unfriendly Fire discusses the VHA coming under severe criticism from Libertarian ideologues and conservative right wing politicians even […]

The Repercussions of Financial Booms and Crises

 by Joseph Joyce The Repercussions of Financial Booms and Crises Financial booms have become a chronic feature of the global financial system. When these booms end in crises, the impact on economic conditions can be severe. Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff of Harvard pointed out that banking crises have been associated with deep […]

“The Battle for VA Healthcare and Its Funding”

VA healthcare has its faults; but, it still is one of the more successful examples of publicly funded healthcare even while hampered by a lack of funding to provide more capacity in strategic places for new Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and aging Vietnam veterans like myself. Libertarian Pete Hegseth, a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq […]

Millennials like socialism — until they get jobs. Or until a pollster tells them that it would mean tax increases but doesn’t tell them, for example, that the tax increases would replace healthcare insurance premiums and out-of-pocket medical expenses. And doesn’t tell them that “more government services” means something other than, say, trash collection twice a week instead of once a week.

Okay, so the title of a Washington Post op-ed piece today by research fellow and director of polling at the Cato Institute Emily Ekins is “Millennials like socialism — until they get jobs.”  She knows that this is do because a recent Reason-Rupe poll—that’s libertarian magazine Reason, and some polling organization they hired—found that: When […]

Canadian Content

Not the same one, but had the same effect on Toronto, ON, that this one did on Deadwood, SD Saint Joseph, MO. ETA: Yes, I conflated Billy the Kid and Jesse James. Here’s an extra video in apology:

Ryan’s Hope ?

Ross Douthat and Stand Collender wonder why Paul Ryan is acting like a fan of Ayn Rand. Douthat notes Repeatedly Harwood presses him on whether the party needs to change to address the concerns of the blue-collar Republicans who are voting for Trump. And every time, as The Week’s James Pethokoukis pointed out afterward, Ryan […]

How I answered a survey from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee about the Merrick Garland nomination

I received an email this morning from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, boldprogressives.org, asking that I complete a survey on the Garland nomination.  The email began with this question: What do you think about Merrick Garland and the Supreme Court vacancy now?  It continued: The president nominated Merrick Garland to fill the vacancy on the […]

The IMF and the Next Crisis

by Joseph Joyce The IMF and the Next Crisis The IMF has issued a warning that “increasing financial market turbulence and falling asset prices” are weakening the global economy, which already faces headwinds due to the “…modest recovery in advanced economies, China’s rebalancing, the weaker-than-expected growth impact from lower oil prices, and generally diminished growth […]