I have been somewhat of a thorn in the Michigan Republican’s side as I know about the PPACA, can explain how it will benefit Michigan, can show by the Governor’s own report it will not cost Michigan anything up to 2027/28, and I can refute the arguments using economic data on other topics. I have […]
Via Truthout comes this post on the US Post Office: The post office makes a profit — expected to be more than a billion dollars this year. Yet, the media keeps reporting that the USPS is losing billions of dollars each year. What they fail to mention is that those are phony paper losses manufactured […]
Two illegal immigrants Erika Andiola and Cesar Vargas engage Republican Representative Steve King on staying in the US. Watch tough guy Rand Paul scamper away after Erika announces she is a “Dreamer.” She appears to challenge Steve King to get rid of her and offers he business card. In answer to her challenge, Steve King […]
Does the name Bruce Rauner ring a bell? No, me neither. It turns out he’s the Republican nominee for governor in Illinois, which under normal circumstances would mean he’s a nobody. But he’s been leading incumbent Democrat Pat Quinn in polls all summer, and could actually end up as the state’s next governor. This is […]
Is there more drought in store for California and the Southwest? The Kelvin Wave that preceded an El Nino has dissapated and the El Nino not not expected to develop. That’s because the largest surge of heat ever recorded moving west to east in the Pacific Ocean, often referred to as a Kelvin Wave, which was supposed […]
Sandwichman has a history of writing on the topic of “Lump of Labor” at Econospeak.
In 1998, the gov made it impossible to discharge federal student loans through bankruptcy except upon death, disability, or public service. The gov did provide certain measures to change payments then such as forbearance, economic forbearance (no interest for 3 years), and payment change. In 2005 private student loan originators lobbied to have the same […]
Matt Bruenig gives us a great breakdown of what poverty would look like if we relied on the market to solve it (as we did almost exclusively for thousands of years before the emergence of enlightened modern welfare states over the last two centuries). The poverty rate among the elderly would be > 45%. (Old […]
Years of >5% Growth: Pre-Reagan? 15 Post-Reagan? 5 Post-80s-recession-recovery? 2 Cross-posted at Asymptosis.
The idea of democracy is to give the people what they want, right? Ezra Klein points us to a great study by Ray LaRaja and Brian Schnaffer examining policy preferences by political donors (5% of the population) vs. non-donors (95%). Here’s my rendition of the results: Whose preferences would you say are embodied in our current government? […]