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

Jon Chait rhymes with Click Bait

I find Jon Chait extremely interesting and stimulating. I often check his blog and regret the rareness of his posts (look who’s typing). He usually overstates his case and has an even the liberal New Republic hippy punching background. This subtitle is pure click bait How Can Hillary Clinton Win the Bernie Sanders Vote? By […]

It Takes a Triangulator to Think This Is a Good Idea

Here’s a video from the Clinton campaign full of Republicans criticizing Trump for his attacks on the judge in his fraud case. — Greg Sargent, Washington Post, this evening Why, of course it’s a good idea, in a campaign that should be based largely on the likelihood that if elected, Trump would serve as Paul […]

How likely is it that Donald Trump, if elected, would serve more than a few months of his term? How likely is it that he will even continue as the nominee much beyond the convention?

My opinion is that Trump is suffering from what I call “Attention-Seeking Deficit Disorder.” He doesn’t want to serve. He doesn’t want to be president; he wants the attention that accompanies the campaign. And now, I think he’s rather afraid that he might win. [Laughs] I don’t think he knows what he’s going to do […]

Subsidy Tracker Reaches Major Milestones

Subsidy Tracker, the free subsidy database created in 2010 by Good Jobs First, has reached major milestones in its coverage of state, local, and federal subsidies. This month’s enhancements to the database bring it to a once-unimaginable 500,000 individual incentive awards with a cumulative nominal subsidy value of $250 billion! That’s starting to add up […]

Why did the Clinton campaign say earlier this month that Trump’s statement that he plans to partially default on the national debt could work? (And, yes, that, as the NYT mentions today, is what the Clinton campaign said.)

Debates have broken out in Mrs. Clinton’s Brooklyn headquarters over the best approach to take. Some advisers worry that by running against Mr. Trump as she would a traditional Republican candidate, Mrs. Clinton is actually making the reality­ television star appear more legitimate. This month, when Mr. Trump suggested he would reduce the national debt […]

Another day, another indication that the Clinton campaign remains dangerously clueless about what will matter most in the general election. Ho-hum.

Clinton’s aides say they have settled on the big story they want to tell about Trump: He is a business fraud who has cheated working people for his own gain, and his ideas, temperament and moves to marginalize people by race, gender and creed make him simply unacceptable as commander in chief. — Clinton thinks […]

SEC capture…

Yves Smith at NC: The SEC showed its true colors yet again at a panel at Stanford Law School at the end of March, although not as dramatically as last year. In last spring’s SEC panel at Stanford, the then head of examinations, Andrew Bowden, made such fawning remarks about private equity, including repeatedly saying […]

Trump Falls to His Knees PLEEEADING for Republican ESTABLISHMENT Donors to Fund His Campaign—Offering Them the Ultimate Gift: Supreme Court Proxies. Toldya.

Tomorrow, behind closed doors with Paul Ryan & Friends, he will swear fealty to Mitt Romney’s platform.  And not just the part written literally, it turns out, by the Heritage Foundation and CNBC!  Also the part written by the Federalist Society. Including on Supreme Court and lower-court appointments.  Suffice it to say that his promise to […]