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

Brad DeLong and THINGS WRONG WITH HASSETT, HUBBARD, MANKIW, AND TAYLOR, "THE ROMNEY PROGRAM FOR ECONOMIC RECOVERY, GROWTH, AND JOBS"

Brad DeLong offers a long post on economists on the Romney team. THINGS WRONG WITH HASSETT, HUBBARD, MANKIW, AND TAYLOR, “THE ROMNEY PROGRAM FOR ECONOMIC RECOVERY, GROWTH, AND JOBS” Notes on HHMT: Kevin Hassett, Glenn Hubbard, Gregory Mankiw, and John Taylor, “The Romney Program for Economic Recovery, Growth, and Jobs” HHMT: We are presently in […]

Health Care Thoughts: Evidence-based medicine not easy

by Tom aka Rusty RustbeltHealth Care Thoughts: Breast Cancer Battle Evidence-based medicine may not be as easy as it first sounds.  An opinion piece in the British Medical Journal (http://www.bmj.com/content/345/bmj.e5132) attacks the Susan G. Komen Foundation for over-hyping the value of mammography. This is not a new controversy, and experts have lined up on both sides of […]

Kleinbard: Tax Fairness and Fairness in Tax Data Reporting

From TaxProf blog: Kleinbard: Tax Fairness and Fairness in Tax Data Reporting Following up on yesterday’s post, WSJ: Taxing the Rich — The Facts:  Huffington Post:  Tax Fairness and Fairness in Tax Data Reporting, by Edward D. Kleinbard(USC):  The impetus for this little paper was an op-ed by Ari Fleischer in the Wall Street Journal […]

Breaking The Healthcare Cost Curve…Maryland

 by Run75441 Breaking The Healthcare Cost Curve Re-posted from 2/20/2010 Quite a bit of the commentary has been written on the question of how-to-rein-in rising healthcare costs and to slow costs to less than the rate of inflation. Massachusetts has been able to provide healthcare to its citizens but still struggles with keeping healthcare insurance […]

Significant economic indicators were showing weakness, Wall Street Rally continues

These two articles were juxtaposed in the NYT today.  At a casual glance they look contradictory, and in my experience in my personal sphere no one has asked for this to be explained in the political arena.  Maybe because I have a porcupine sort of personality.  We are apt to discuss parts more deeply but […]

Health Care Thoughts: Cardiologists Gone Wild

by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt Health Care Thoughts: Cardiologists Gone Wild I have been waiting……. for a major federal investigation into unnecessary cardiology interventions. According to the NYT a major target are some HCA hospitals in Florida. The NYT focuses on HCA and for-profit, but I think this is a much broader problem. Unlike some […]

Two Important Op-Ed Pieces Today

I want to draw AB readers’ attention to two of the most important op-ed pieces I’ve read in a while.  They address entirely different, but profoundly important, matters. One is Elizabeth Warren’s piece today in Politico, called Stop riggingsystem against small business. The other is Bill Keller’s column today in the New York Times, called […]

Recommended reading on Social Security

Eric Larson is interviewed about Social Security and his new book The People’s Pension: The War Against Social Security from Reagan to Obama (AK Press, Spring 2012): Eric Laursen is an independent journalist who’s been covering political and financial news for more than a quarter-century. He’s been studying Social Security for the past 15 years, […]

Jobs reporting…gained and lost confusions

I noticed in comments on Spencer England’s post for this month’s Employment Situation that the 1.2 million jobs lost number was put forth as fact and a reason to dismiss BLS numbers outright. Links to a more careful and complete look at the numbers follows: Brad Plummer at the WaPo discusses two issues with employment […]