NewHounds watch Fox so we don’t have to: Hannity’s face was in the bullyboy squint and he jabbed his finger as he spoke to “Democratic strategist” Bob Beckel. “I want YOU to know, Bob Beckel, I give blame for high gas prices. 30 years of the Democrats beholden to the extreme environmental movement, we haven’t […]

AB reader ilsm points us to a set of White House graphs on employment, GDP growth, and the budget. More on this after thanking Brad DeLong for commenting on a comment from Greg Mankiw on our fiscal future. Greg reminds us that we have to choose between reducing entitlement growth versus imposing taxes even higher […]

Mark Thoma finds this gem from the Columbia Business School Follies about Ben Bernanke … enjoy! Check this out: “Every Breath You Take,” by Dean Glenn Hubbard. It’s worth it (music video about Bernanke to the tune of “Every Breath You Take” – wmv file). Update: iTunes link (mp4).

KLo suggests that Senator Kennedy is a socialist for telling Russert: And he ought to activate and call the Federal Trade Commission-which is basically a sleepy organization that has given an interim report in terms of price-fixing and gouging-he ought to get them off and have them working seven days a week, 24/7, to make […]

We have been hearing about record oil prices. We all know how the press tends to ignore the nominal to real distinction so I decided to check out the excellent graphs from WRTG Economics. Their graph of real oil prices from 1947 to 2004 express oil prices in term of 2004$. For a brief period […]

John Tamny observes that the capacity utilization rate has reached 81.3% and wonders why the FED is raising interest rates. Mark Thoma reads Tamny’s argument that we should only worry about world aggregate demand as compared to world supply and says: This is wrong. OK, that statement was actually in response to the tired old […]

King Gyanendra of Nepal is promising to restore power to the people, while KLo is under the illusion that George Bush has ousted another long standing tyrant: If I were Tony Snow, I’d totally give Bush credit for the freedom’s advance in Kathmandu. Maybe KLo should learn more about the history of Nepal: The declaration […]

We had a couple of data releases this week telling us something about inflation. Today’s release was the CPI data for March, which comes on the heels of yesterday’s PPI data release. Today’s news release showed surprisingly high inflation in non-energy consumer items. For some, this has raised alarm bells: WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — U.S. core […]

John Tamny wants to remind Lawrence Lindsey about the Hume Specie Flow Model: To begin, just as Chinese authorities fix the yuan’s value, so too do U.S. authorities fix the dollar’s value. As the Journal’s George Melloan noted in a recent editorial, “no currency actually ‘floats.’” As opposed to commodities set by market forces, currencies […]

The spot price for Cushing, OK WTI just hit $70 per barrel. Edit: Spot prices were briefly above $70 last year due to Hurricane Katrina. Click on graph for larger image. Dr. Nouriel Roubini suggests that $70 oil may have a significant impact on the US economy: ” … if oil prices were to drift […]