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

The Problem With O’Malley’s New-Generation Pitch: Elizabeth Warren is 65 and Bernie Sanders is 73

Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley formally declared over the weekend that he will run for the Democratic presidential nomination. In his speech and a subsequent interview with ABC News, he floated several themes: He has executive experience; the presidency is not a “crown” to be passed back and forth among royal families (i.e., the Clintons and the Bushes); […]

Picking Up The Tab for Full Service Restaurants

In the news, great attention has been paid to the activities of fast food workers striking to increase their salary up from minimum wage, their plight with fast food restaurants, and their heavy reliance on public assistance to get-by. Included with fast restaurant workers whose employers are represented by the National Restaurant Association are full […]

A Non Veto Threat ?

In about one month, the US Supreme Court will announce a decision on King Vs Burwell in which the plaintiffs argue that subsidies may not be paid to people who purchased health insurance on exchanges operated by the US Federal Government. The risk that they will win terrifies, among others, Senator Ronald Johnson (R-Wisconsin) who […]

New America Foundation: Let the Sins of Grad PLUS Loans Be Visited Upon IBR

Introduction I ran across Matt Leichter and the Law School Tuition Bubble blog while doing some research on the Koch Brothers cozening up to CAP after having seen Beth Akers and Matt Chingos write for Brookings a think tank which in the past has been careful about what type of funding it receives and from […]

Alan Collinge of Student Loan Justice on CAP’s Current Efforts to Revamp Student Loans

It has been a while since I had last talked to Alan. I knew at the time he was at issue with a stance the Center for American Progress was taking on Student Loans which surprising are supported by some of our more popular consumer advocates. Kind of makes sense as we now see the […]

Clinton really, really needs to kill her incoherent “When women are [fill in the blank], families are [same word; slightly different meaning] slogan. Really.

When women are strong, families are strong. — Hillary Clinton, repeatedly When women are healthy, families are healthy. — Hillary Clinton, a few days ago Good news.  According to National Journal journalist Molly Mirhashem and h/t’d by Anna North of the New York Times, the Clinton campaign is no longer taking women’s support as a […]

Burns delivers call to action: ‘Set things right again’​

Worthy of a read of (or if you want a listen to) a recent Commencement speech given by Ken Burns at Washington University calling on recent graduates to help fix what previous generations have left broken and incomplete. I have posted both the verbal and the written version for you to select. A comment extracted […]

Light Reading

– McDonalds turns 75 today, an empire of 36,000 restaurants in 199 countries. McDonalds is the largest buyer of beef, pork, potatoes, lettuce, and tomatoes globally and the second largest buyer of chicken after KFC. While faced with greater competition, McDonalds has started to revamp its offerings to recapture what it has lost and meet […]