David Zetland at Aguanomics asks a very basic question about our perceptions of what constitutes management: Question of the week I’m thinking that “water manager” is not the right title for people who work at drinking water utilities, irrigation districts, and other water organizations. That’s because they are not really supposed to manage water supply […]
That final paragraph really gets to one of my obsessions: that the political left and the mainstream media focus so heavily on culture-wars issues–especially regarding the Supreme Court–that the corporatocracy and other rightwing non-culture-wars interests (states’ rights!) have been having an incredible run these past years in the courts, without most people even knowing it. […]
It’s history lesson time again. An awful lot of talk and writing about the chained CPI has been focused on the results of its implementation on Social Security. Using this formula for figuring the cost of living ends up reducing the money citizens will receive in their SS checks. One of our commenters, Denis Drew […]
Tzimiskes offers some thoughts on the budget process (hat tip Run75441, and re-posted with author’s permission) Tzimiskes has been blogging for more than 3 years on economics, politics, and public policy. He holds a Masters of Political Science from SUNY Albany, and worked in New York State government for four years before returning to the […]
If you’re a fish merrily swimming in a stream, is it your fault if a flood — say from a large release from the dam upstream — causes you to be washed out through the sluicegates? Or if a drought leaves you trapped in a shrinking pool from which you cannot escape? That’s the question […]
The headline numbers in the employment report were very weak as payroll employment rose by only 88,000 and the household survey reported a -206,000 drop in employment while the labor force fell by -496,000. The futures markets are reacting very badly. But the workweek expanded and aggregrate hours worked increased 0.3% as compared to 0.5% […]
Via Huffington Post comes this quote: One senior administration official offered the following explanation as to why they started with a “compromise” offer. While this is not the president’s ideal deficit-reduction plan, and there are particular proposals in this plan — like the CPI change — that were key Republican requests and not the president’s […]
There is a lot of posting on the proposed budget (out next week) from our President focusing on his insistence of including the cuts to Social Security benefits as part of the 11 dimensional chess game analogy Beltway convention likes to applaud. How clever of them. Yves Smith gives us an impassioned declaration of outrage over the […]
Discussing the failure of modern macro to incorporate the financial system into its models, Ben asks, why did the bursting of the housing bubble spank the economy so much harder than the dot bomb crash? He sez (courtesy Brad DeLong, emphasis mine): …the decline in wealth associated with the tech bubble bursting [in 2001] and […]
Yup. The Republicans won the sequester fight. Congrats!