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

Read Jeff Madrik

Note to self: read more Jeff Madrik (hey he wrote books which I haven’t read) but for now read his very interesting and stimulating Op-ed “Our Misplaced Faith in Free Trade” do click the link. After the jump, I will steal fair use the whole op-ed with my comments (is that called fisking ?) but […]

Amazon and Hachette: What’s Really at Issue?

I just sent the following to David Streitfeld, the main reporter covering this dispute for the New York Times. If any of my gentle readers has an answer, I’d love to hear it: Dear Mr. Streitfeld: What I have never found in any coverage (perhaps I’ve missed it?): What is the precise dispute between Amazon and […]

Explaining “The most important chart about the American economy you’ll see this year”

See update at bottom. Pavlina Tcherneva’s chart has been getting a lot of play out there: Vox/Matthew Yglesias labeled it “The most important chart about the American economy you’ll see this year.” Scott Winship at Fortune came back at it on methodological grounds, with the headline “No, the Rich Are Not Taking All of the Economic Pie (In […]

Sooo …. which of Obama’s economic policies do you want to repeal or defeat, Repubs?? And replace those policies with whose–I mean, what–economic policies, exactly? Do tell!

Barack Obama wanted to galvanize Democrats when he insisted this week that his economic policies are on the ballot in November. Instead, the soundbite has already become the centerpiece of new Republican attack ads. Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell uses the clip in a new commercial, shared first with POLITICO. Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts turned his own […]

Repeal LyndonJohnsonCare?

While I was reading an article on the web this morning from my phone, up popped one of those incessant anti-Obama/anti-Obamacare “take-a-survey” ads—one of those little square red-and-white-bordered things with a goofy-looking picture of Obama on it.  My laptop software blocks these things, so I was lucky enough to have not seen one of those […]

Vulgar Empiricism Obama V Reagan

Just compare the graphs (reminder, mainly to myself, at least with Chrome, you have to click “read more” to see the graphs) Reagan Obama Overall Reagan saw a decline of 0.5% from 7.5% in January 1981 to 7.0% in September 1986, while Obama saw a decline of 1.9% from 7.8 % inJanuary 2009 to 5.9% […]

Boeing moving 2000 jobs from Washington state

Via @BlogWood, I learned that Boeing is going to move 2000 skilled jobs away from Washington state, despite just receiving $8.7 billion (with a B) in subsidies for the years 2025-2040. Really, I’m speechless. “Chutzpah” is one of the more printable words I can think of to describe this. You will recall that the state’s […]