Robert Waldmann I hate to type that headline given the health care reform debate, but I am alarmed by Karen DeYoung’s article in the Washington Post about new efforts to get Afghans to stop producing opium — all new this time with carrots. The problem is that the price of wheat is too low. The […]

rdan Joe Conason of Salon gets this one right. Here was an effort that exemplified the best of America — a society that values the lives of its citizens enough to send a former head of state, with all the power of government behind him, to the aid of two women in distress. Here was […]

By Spencer, The employment report was very encouraging. Most importantly, aggregate hours worked were unchanged at 91.1 as compared to 104.1, 101.7 and 99.7 over the last three quarters. An unchanged reading is a massive improvement from the 8% to 9% rate of decline over the past three quarters. With positive productivity this impies that […]

Ron Wyden, Democratic Senator from Oregon who serves on the Senate Finance Committee and the Energy Committee, is generally considered a liberal, though with a mixed bag of positions that hardly qualify on all grounds. He is against the estate tax and favors lowering rates of capital gains taxes, neither of which makes sense, from […]

If you needed a picture of a Megan M., you could have used this one: I’m probably not the only one who wonders why you chose a Megan F. instead. (h/t Susan of Texas. Photo credit to superficialgallery.com)

rdan For JS-Kit’s part, and Echo specifically, the key is to ensure that a blog is a full and fruitful part of the full social media landscape. The goal is to make the blog post the first place to share a thought and the best place to see a complete and comprehensive view of the […]

rdan I was going to do another piece on the OCC and performance as a regulating agency, but Baseline Scenario did a great job already:John Dugan and the OCC. Does anyone know if a replacement is even being considered?

rdan I have been informed by js-kit that Aug.6, 09 is the date of our automatic conversion to the Echo Commenting System. Be advised it interconnects comments to other sites with your open ID and other formats as a social networking opportunity when someone clicks your profile, compiling your trail of comments over the internets. […]