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

The Usual Suspect Bashes Social Security

It Is Monday And Usual Suspect Bashes Social Security  That would be Robert J. Samuelson at the Washington Post, and, yes, he has done it yet again, actually for the first time in a while.  Dean Baker has already done a good job of cutting him up over on CEPR, but I can’t help piling […]

Foxconn is flailing in Wisconsin (Insert your joke here.)

Foxconn is flailing in Wisconsin (Insert your joke here.)  In what may end up as the biggest economic development failure in U.S. history, Foxconn announced Wednesday that its $10 billion Wisconsin factory will not be a factory. Instead, the company says, it will still create 13,000 jobs, but these will be research jobs rather than manufacturing ones. […]

Reagan’s Tax Cuts and the Volcker Recession

(Dan here…lifted from Robert’s Stochastic Thoughts) Reagan’s Tax Cuts and the Volcker Recession  Max Boot is a candidate member of the Rubin Gerson can’t be a conservative anymore, because I always agree with them club of Washington Post columnists. But he is a bit confused about US macroeconmic history and macroeconomics. He wrote”The deficit spending […]

The Two Percent Solution: Warren and the Stochastic Jubilee

The Two Percent Solution: Warren and the Stochastic Jubilee Wait long enough, and great ideas come back around, although not necessarily wearing the same garb.  Elizabeth Warren has just come out for a 2% wealth tax (above $50 million).*  But this is simply an annualized version of my lump sum stochastic jubilee.  What’s the advantage of redistributing the […]

“If Only Obama had Done the Things Obama Actually Did” J-chait

(Dan here…lifted from Robert’s Stochastic Thoughts) “If Only Obama had Done the Things Obama Actually Did” J-chait Jon Chait remains as enthusiastic about Barack Obama as I am, so it isn’t surprising that he wrote a blog post entitled “If Only Obama had Done the Things Obama Actually Did”. But the title does raise a […]

Rare Yglesias Google Fail

(Dan here…lifted from Robert’s Stochastic Thoughts) Rare Yglesias Google Fail (Most boring title after “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative” but I couldn’t resist) Web savvy ultra wonk Matthew Yglesias wrote “There’s no polling on specific brackets or exactly who counts as rich that I can find,” Matty just google [income to be rich poll]. Jeez. Americans have varying ideas of how much […]

Flying blind

Flying blind The government shutdown is affecting some important economic indicators. All of the series published by the Census Bureau, including retail sales, manufacturers’ and wholesalers’ data, personal income and spending, new home sales and housing permits and starts, are not being published.  It appears that GDP is not going to be published by the […]