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

Links Worth Noting: Stealth (Class) Warfare

by Linda Beale Links Worth Noting: Stealth (Class) Warfare(Op-ed) Paul Krugman, Class Wars of 2012, New York Times (Nov. 30, 2012). When Mitt Romney disparaged ordinary Americans, it was visible, obvious, and clearly an indication of the lack of esteem he held for ordinary Americans. The same arrogance is at work in the class warfare […]

Waldmann’s thoughts on voting districts

by Robert Waldmann I think this is the best post I have read so far on the topic by Kathleen Geier.  Just go read it before reading my comment below. Of course I have my usual comments: Thank you Kathleen Geier  for your excellent post based on good shoe leather (OK leather ear to the phone) reporting.  I […]

One Nation, Divisible

We are a country not just divided, but fragmented along axes of race, age, religion, economic status and geography.  There are now 15 States where citizens have filed petitions to secede from the Union.  “These include Louisiana (which led the charge), the Republic of Texas, Kentucky, Colorado, New Jersey, Montana, North Dakota, Indiana, Mississippi, North […]

Explaining Class Warfare

  Last month one hundred and fourteen thousand unemployed moochers…suddenly yank the government teat out of their mouths, get off the couch for forty hours a week? Why?     I say follow the money; cause I found out, that right around the time those people got those jobs…they started getting paid!   And just […]

Strategic Lying as Political Art

If you listen to Randi Rhodes, you know she is still livid over Romney being declared the “winner” in last week’s – we’ll call it a “debate” for the nonce. Alas, though, the reason he won is that poll numbers have moved in his favor.  Whether that bounce is robust remains to be seen.  But […]

Ok class, let’s review before the exam (election)

I’m sure you are all feeling kind of blah. You have this final exam for this session and I can tell by your performances on the quizzes that you are still confused. The problem solving portions of the quizzes have been very telling. So lets review.   You’re taxes are not too high. It’s your […]

More on Michigan Voting

The U.S. Election Atlas shows the Michigan county by county results for the general election in 2008.  Note that they have inexplicably reversed the normal Red-Blue color coding.   Contrast those results with the 2012 Republican primary results. In the Lower Peninsula, the counties that went for Romney in a big way generally went for Obama […]

Ron Paul Challenges Liberals – or Maybe Not

Matt Stoller, the former Senior Policy Advisor to Rep. Alan Grayson and a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute has a couple of very interesting articles posted at Naked Capitalism,  Why Ron Paul Challenges Liberals, and the follow-up, Naked Capitalism, “A Home for All Sorts of Bircher Nonsense” These are thought-provoking, in many ways insightful, and […]

Follow up to a Libertarian future

Reader Jazzbumpa suggests taking a look at Yves Smith’s Journey into a Libertarian Future series as part of Mike’s thought experiment on the subject here. A very good read. He also offers one of his own posts on the matter at Retirement Blues Brute economics of slavery. And opines at the end of his e-mail […]