rdan Nearly all men can standadversity, but if you want totest a man’s character, givehim power.– Abraham Lincoln

This measure says the “Great Recession” is the worse since the Depression. The previous record was a 13% drop in 1958 and 1974. It is now down 13.6% this cycle.

I love this. The consensus expectations was for the core CPI to come in at 0.2% this month. It came in at 0.253%, was rounded up to 0.3%, and the market is selling off on this. Just remember, betting on monthly economic releases is a suckers game created by the bond and stock brokerage houses […]

rdan Steven Pearlstein in the WaPO suggests an alternative way at looking at the value of regional newspapers, as more of an opportunity and as less of a death we can ill afford for externalities sake. Updated link in WaPo, thanks MG. Update 2: I recommend moseying over to Naked Capitalism for this piece on […]

Chrysler eliminating about a quarter of its dealerships is getting a lot of press, but the press seems to be completely ignoring why Chrysler is doing this. All day CNBC has been talking to Chrysler dealers and not once have I heard them say a word about why Chrysler is doing this. The reason is […]

Meet the New Boss; Same as the Old Boss. Andrew Sullivan points out the obvious link from yesterday’s appointment to today’s “reversal“: It was a point of pride that the Red Cross would never be allowed in the door, Jeff says. This is important because it defied the Geneva Conventions, which require that the Red […]

by Bruce Webb 2007 Report Table IV.B72008 Report Table IV.B7 2009 Report Table IV.B7There are some prominent commentators on Social Security who insist that its future Unfunded Liabilities are in large part the result of over-generosity to past participants, and particularly those who drew benefits from the program in the early years without fully contributing. […]

As always, click on image to enlarge.People who claim that ‘there is no Trust Fund’ never explain how this works in practice. In reality the two Social Security Trust Funds have portfolios of securities with stated maturities and rates. As these become due each year they are rolled over into new securities in whole or […]

a post by coberly ONE OF THE LESS NOTICED PASSAGES IN THE TRUSTEES REPORT… … reveals something rather interesting: On page 12, it says, “Social Security’s scheduled tax revenue is projected to decline from its current level of about 5.0 percent of GDP, reaching 4.4% by 2083.” That’s odd… Decline? That should make you wonder: […]