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

CNN/ORC debate instant poll

To err is human to persevere is diabolical.  ORC and CNN have done it again.  Delighted by the success of their instant poll on the Presidential debate, they did an identical poll of the Vice Presidential debate. They report results for a sample of 381 (is that the smallest sample ever for a national poll […]

New Model Legislation Would be Great First Step Toward Subsidy Reform

 by Kenneth Thomas New Model Legislation Would be Great First Step Toward Subsidy Reform Yesterday, Good Jobs First released new model legislation to increase the transparency, accountability, and effectiveness of state and local subsidies, which I estimate to total $70 billion per year. If states were to adopt these laws, subsidy administration would improve dramatically, […]

Jim Lehrer Wins the Debate?? Heaven Help Us.

And a debate is a perfect place to spit out numbers and plan names without a moderator fact-checking you. —  Paul Ryan’s Word Salad, David Weigel, Slate, today Indeed. I was absolutely dumbfounded to read yesterday that the MSM is now buying Lehrer’s idea of what a debate should be. Do they not understand that […]

Debt and Growth

Art at The New Arthurian Economics and I are looking at the relationship between debt and economic growth.  Art started with an observation of two FRED series, total credit market debt owed (TCMDO) and Gross Domestic Product (GDP,  nominal or GDPC1, inflation adjusted – take your pick.) Graph 1, from FRED, shows these data series.  […]

Jonathan Bernstein Nails the Mad Hatter

Beautiful. (I was thinking the same thing during the debate, but since no one afterward pointed it out, I thought I must have misunderstood.)  Just wondering whether Romney still has his old calculator around.  The one from his Bain days.  The one that could actually add and subtract!  And multiply and divide and perform algebraic, trigonometric and […]

The Mad Hatter For President! (Pleeease, Obama campaign, do a Halloween Fun-House ad. Pleeeease.)

Have you heard the news? Mitt Romney met with editors of the Des Moines Register yesterday and dropped a bombshell. “Romney promises no abortion legislation,” says the Associated Press. “Romney: No abortion legislation,” says Politico. “Romney says no plans to restrict abortion,” says Agence France-Presse. Nope. That isn’t what Romney said. This is a man with a long history […]

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 […]