Usually my articles present facts and data and try to drive down to a conclusion. This time, I’m going to drive down to a couple of questions. Recently, Noah Smith had a post on the subject of economic models titled Filling a hole or priming the pump?  It did quite a bit to restore my […]

But Gingrich seems to have noticed that the key to his South Carolina landslide last weekend was overwhelming support from blue-collar and middle-class Republican voters. With those making between $30,000 and $50,000 a year, Gingrich crushed Romney by 20 points. With those making between $50,000 and $70,000, the margin was 16. But at the top […]

by Rebecca Wilder European Daily Catch: Know Your Consumers Today’s European Daily Catch compares the aggregate implications of the reported January 1-point rise in French household confidence to the reported January stabilization of Italian consumer confidence. Specifically, French consumers could be ‘happier’ but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re spending more, while Italian household confidence translates rather […]

by Dale Coberly SOCIAL SECURITYHow They Lie To Us The Wall Street Journal in the article Newtitlement State is unhappy with Newt Gingrich’s plan to privatize Social Security. Not only does it know that “privatization” failed when Bush offered it to the country, but they understand that most elected Republicans have distanced themselves from private-account carveouts […]

I think (after a lot of effort) that I’ve internalized Nick Rowe’s modeling of this question (follow links from here) pretty well conceptually. His answer is Yes. There have been thousands of posts and comments across the blogosphere since Nick took Krugman to task on the issue a couple of weeks ago, and Nick has […]

Dahlia Lithwick writes about the masterful attention Republicans have given to the judicial system in  The Washington Monthly: For anyone considering the 2012 election’s importance to the future of the American judiciary, one fact stands out: next November, Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be seventy-nine years old. If a Republican wins the presidential election, he or […]

Yves Smith continues to follow the progress of investigations in  More Caution and Skepticism About Federal Mortgage “Investigation” While a large number of “liberal” groups, ranging from the official Democratic party outlets (the Center for American Progress) to ones that sometimes cross swords with the Administration (MoveOn, the Working Families Party) praised the Tuesday evening […]

I want to point to John Cassidy’s notion in the New Yorker that Twitter could serve as an adequate platform for electioneering candidates… …What if, rather than presenting a long and tedious speech that would constantly be interrupted by senators and congressmen mugging for the cameras, the President sat in the Oval Office, or anywhere, […]

by Linda Beale Obama’s State of the Union vs Romney’s Tax Returns Obama took the high ground in his state of the union address, where he pointedly noted the importance of applying fair tax rules to ensure that millionaires pay taxes at rates more similar to those paid by secretaries and firefighters. He wants a […]

by Rebecca Wilder Japan’s Lopsided Financial Balances Tim Duy and Paul Krugman discuss the merits and failures of Japanese policy. The sectoral snapshot of the economic financial balances shows that Japanese policy was indeed a success but also a failure. First, policy was a success, given the private sector was recuperating from the bursting of […]