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

CHUCK BLAHOUS FINDS THE ANSWER FOR SOCIAL SECURITY AND LOSES IT.

by Dale Coberly CHUCK BLAHOUS FINDS THE ANSWER FOR SOCIAL SECURITY AND LOSES IT. Charles Blahous is one of the politically appointed Trustees for Social Security. He has written “A Guide To The 2013 Social Security Trustees Report” at e21 Economic Policies for the 21st Century http://www.economics21.org/commentary/guide-2013-social-security-trustees-report . Blahous tells us “Social Security faces a […]

Mainstream thought on Social Security

The NYT offers an editorial on what is becoming mainstream thinking on What’s Next for Social Security? Of course the writing is still short on pointing to the thoroughly researched possibilities for adjusting the program for changing circumstances. The trustees of Social Security recently reported that the retirement system can pay full benefits until 2035, […]

Sooo … Akhil Reed Amar and Neal Katyal confuse the IRS and TSA with the FBI. I mean … really, profs??

Update: Link at Scotus blog http://www.scotusblog.com/2013/06/wednesday-round-up-187/. As prosecutors, police agencies and civil libertarians consider the ruling’s implications, Justice Scalia’s stark dissent — and the fact that President Obama’s two appointees to the court so far agreed with it — makes it worthy of scrutiny, even if he was on the losing side. His argument is […]

“Per qualche dollaro in più” or For A Few Dollars More . . .

Having helped quite a few younger people rearrange student loans from the private sector to Direct Loans or consolidate loans to achieve lower interest rates or payments; I just find this market-place-staging by some politicians offensive. July 1st the rates are expected to double (3+% to 6+%) for subsidized and unsubsidized Stafford loans and probably […]

2013 Social Security Report

Well I am back at Angry Bear and just getting my feet wet with WordPress, so this first post won’t be ambitious.   The 2013 Annual Report of the Trustees of Social Security was released today Friday the 31st of May. The short take-aways are ‘not much change’ and ‘no news is good news’: date […]

Is the IRS Inspector General Himself Partisan, Or Is He Just Stupifyingly Clueless About the Law?

After the tax agency was denounced in recent weeks by President Obama, lawmakers and critics for what they described as improper scrutiny of at least 100 groups seeking I.R.S. recognition, The New York Times examined more than a dozen of the organizations, most of them organized as 501(c)(4) “social welfare” groups under the tax code, […]

31 Million Uninsured Under the PPACA . . .

Over at “Economists View,” Anne and Muses are having a discussion over why some 30-something million will be uninsured under the PPACA Paul Krugman: The Obamacare Shock. The conversation goes back and forth citing references without giving any real explanation of what the 31 million is composed of and why they will not be covered. […]

What Reinhart and Rogoff should do now

Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff wrote an angry open letter about how Krugman has been uncivil to them.  Krugman’s reply strikes me as being convincing even devastating. Update: My full fisking here. I want to focus on one sentence in the R&R letter   “politicians may float a citation to an academic paper if it […]

What Obligations Do Mainstream Media Editors (e.g., The Washington Post’s) Have to Bar Their Regular Political Columnists (e.g., Michael Gerson) From Stating Bald Misrepresentations of Fact?

Compare: When people realize that their most personal, sensitive, intimate, private health-care information is in the hands of the IRS that’s been willing to use people’s tax information against political opponents of this administration, then people have pause and they pull back in horror. — Michele Bachmann, on ABC News/Yahoo, May 20 (H/T Glenn Kessler, […]

Timeline of climate modeling

Steve Easterbrook offers this quick timeline on climatology.   In particular, the movies and animations at the end, including the IPSL one, are very interesting and a lot of fun. See  Timeline of climate modeling