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

Milken Global Conference

Just cactching up. Hat tip to Mark Thoma for the post on the Milken Global Conference. He mentions the panel on Geopolitics, Global Demand and the Quest for Energy Security”, and the video from the session Roubini and Milken Debate Where we’ve been-where we’re going

HOW MUCH MONEY DOES A MAN NEED

by Dale Coberly HOW MUCH MONEY DOES A MAN NEED A morality tale Leo Tolstoy tells a story about a Russian peasant who makes a deal with the Devil. The devil will give the man as much land as he can walk around in one day. But, the devil warns him (the devil always tells […]

Healthcare Reform Myths and Countering Facts

by run75441 Portions of this post originally appeared in HealthBeat Blog as written by Maggie Mahar; Myths & Facts About HealthCare Reform: Who Wins & Who Loses? and Myths & Facts about Health Care Reform Part 2: Doctors Who Take Medicare Healthcare Reform Myths and Countering Facts The media has fun chumming the airwaves with […]

CORE CPI

I have reported on this in previous years, but in the first quarter the increase in the not seasonally adjusted (NSA) core CPI was the smallest increase since the early 1960s. Moreover, the 2010 increase was only 0.5%, or less than half the average increase of 1.2% from 2000 to 2009.Why is this important? In […]

War reporting and discussion

It has been asked a number of times why Angry Bear has not posted on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for awhile now. William Pitt asks the same question for himself: William Pitt writes an op-ed about where the criticism in the press and blogs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have gone […]

Type four win-win trading

by Robert Waldmann Brad DeLong clears his throat. I throw a cow. He wrote: The win-win benefits of trading money for money–where are they? It turns out that they are there. There are, actually, four: 1. Trading money now for money later: people who want to save now and spend later can make win-win trades […]

Greece – GIIPS – Eurozone – Big Problem

O.K., Greece is now “high yield”, “junk”, “below investment grade”, at least according to S&P. What I mean by that is S&P now rates Greece’s foreign and local currency sovereign debt at the BB+ level (with a negative outlook), below the sometimes-coveted investment grade status, BBB- is the minimum. Why did S&P feel the need […]

What to do about CDO ratings II

Robert Waldmann An earlier post on this topic seems to have been eaten by blogger (update it’s back). This post is roughly half roughly retyping. I have two proposals (last time I only had one). One is to give up on the ratings agencies. They were geese that laid golden eggs providing an immensely valuable […]

The NY Times Jumps the Shark — Again

UPDATE: Tristero piles on the details that I assumed. And Bloix in comments there makes it clear that the diagram which has the Generals’s panties in twists is relatively straightforward compared to a car’s electrical system (as anyone who has used Erwin or Visio or even Powerpoint to build data flow diagrams can tell you). […]

Ross Douthat and the cocoon

Robert Waldmann Douthat is worried about the Republican information cocoon. He thinks that conservatives should not rely so much on Fox News and should be open to media which they consider unfriendly (such as his employer the New York Times). He argues that Republicans achieved more back before FoxIn the age Before Fox News, on […]