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

Forbes Fight

Avik Roy wrote an extremely misleading article on Obamacare in California. It seems that Roy is the latest R-team player to be sacked.   Basically Roy compared Obamacare exchange rates (without subsidies) to the teaser rate from a web site which has received many extremely unamusing negative reviews for baiting and switching. R. Unger totally […]

“Per qualche dollaro in più” or For A Few Dollars More . . .

Having helped quite a few younger people rearrange student loans from the private sector to Direct Loans or consolidate loans to achieve lower interest rates or payments; I just find this market-place-staging by some politicians offensive. July 1st the rates are expected to double (3+% to 6+%) for subsidized and unsubsidized Stafford loans and probably […]

2013 Social Security Report

Well I am back at Angry Bear and just getting my feet wet with WordPress, so this first post won’t be ambitious.   The 2013 Annual Report of the Trustees of Social Security was released today Friday the 31st of May. The short take-aways are ‘not much change’ and ‘no news is good news’: date […]

Justice Scalia Says Rightwing Economic Ideology is Mandated By the Constitution. Really.

Scalia regularly bars video or voice recordings of his off-the-bench speeches, and in at least one fairly recent instance, the details of which I can’t recall, he employed a member of the U.S. Marshals Service to enforce his policy.  If I recall correctly, a member of his security detail confiscated a reporter’s or law student’s […]

More on Ineffective Fiscal Policy

This is a companion piece to Steve’s AB post from earlier today, where he points out the specious reasoning of  “the likes of Scott Sumner, David Beckworth, Lars Christensen, et al., claiming that fiscal austerity has obviously had no effect on GDP growth.” I wrote Sumner off a few years ago due to a highly […]

Is the IRS Inspector General Himself Partisan, Or Is He Just Stupifyingly Clueless About the Law?

After the tax agency was denounced in recent weeks by President Obama, lawmakers and critics for what they described as improper scrutiny of at least 100 groups seeking I.R.S. recognition, The New York Times examined more than a dozen of the organizations, most of them organized as 501(c)(4) “social welfare” groups under the tax code, […]

Does Steady GDP Growth “Prove” that Market Monetarists Are Right About Ineffective Fiscal Policy and Foolish Keynesianism?

You’re seeing a lot of crowing these days from the likes of Scott Sumner, David Beckworth, Lars Christensen, et al., claiming that fiscal austerity has obviously had no effect on GDP growth. “Look!” they say: “Even with the sequester and all the other government spending cuts, growth in 2013 has been the same as 2012! […]

Modern money and public purpose

From Matt McOsker  : This might be a good debate to advertise on AB: http://www.modernmoneyandpublicpurpose.com/mmt-vs-austrian-school.html Modern Monetary Theory vs. the Austrian school macroeconomic debates among the heterodoxy Warren Mosler, Author, Soft Currency Economic Versus Robert Murphy, Associated Scholar, The Mises Academy When: 6.15pm June 3rd, 2013 Where: Room 103, Jerome Greene Hall, Columbia Law School Livestream: A […]