Since the presidential election there have been claims made that the Democratic Party is not interested in change.  People have noted how the pre-election rhetoric of both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama did not match their post election actions.  (I’ve pointed out specific examples in the past). I just heard the following article on Democracy […]

Whither Social Capital? This past Friday there was yet another retirement conference, this time honoring “Mr. Social Capital,” Robert S. Putnam, who is retiring from Harvard’s Kennedy School at age 77.  I was not invited, but I know some people who attended, including my sister and brother-in-law, the latter speaking at the dinner as family, […]

(Dan here…better late than not!) by New Deal democrat A better name for The Kids Today: iGeneration You know the drill. It’s Sunday so I get to ruminate about all stuff that isn’t dry economics. The oldest member of the Millennial generation is 38. Not only do I not think that The Kids Today would […]

by Cactusman What Happened to the Political Price for Lying? (Part 2) Recently I wrote about the political price of lying and how there is a serious disconnect between voters (including republican voters) saying they want honesty in a politician and how they act. My initial conclusion was that many voters are lying to themselves […]

Low response rates are a problem for pollsters. The worst problem is candidate specific response bias in which supporters of one candidate are more likely to respond than supporters of another. This can make polls worthless. It is interested to the other very hard problem of predicting who will actually vote. I am thinking of […]

by Cactusman What Happened to the Political Price for Lying? (Part one of two) James Comey’s recent interview on ABC has resurrected questions about the importance of honesty in public officials. One of the key themes of Comey’s interview, and apparently his soon-to-be-released book, is that Donald Trump is “morally unfit” to be president because, […]

Steve Hutkins of Save the Post Office blog also reviewed the WSJ/Citigroup analysis of the Amazon – USPS agreement in the second half of his article, “Fake News, Flawed Analysis, and Bogus Tweets,” April 8 on Angry Bear. As noted in the first half on Steve’s article presented at Angry Bear; Trump’s tweet about the […]

The OM Wiener award goes to House Speaker Paul Ryan. Paul Ryan can’t just leave, go home, and check with Oscar Mayer to see if he can still drive the OM Wiener Mobile again like he did as a college student. Naaaw, instead he is threating baby boomers with making them pay again for their […]

I am posting this NPR Fresh Air radio article here because it talks about a part of our society that has not been talked about much.  When it comes to discussion of taxation, social programs, how our economy works, the basic premise of free market misses an awful lot. From the page: For many poor […]

Unresolved Issues In Happiness Economics From The Conference Honoring The Retirement Of The Field’s Founder That would be Richard A. Easterlin, age 92, retiring this spring from the U. of Southern California after being there since 1981, following an earlier stint at U. of Penn, where he got his PhD under Simon Kuznets.  Kuznets in […]