by Linda Beale Finance moves transportation bill–revenue sources at issue Senate Finance committee approved on a 17-6 vote the transportation financing proposal (13 Dems and 5 GOP voting yes; the GOP were Snowe, Crapo, Roberts and Thune).The GOP –Jon Kyl a favorite spokesperson–claimed that the Committee’s rush had “lost the opportunity to have a truly […]

Any knowledgeable economist will tell you that GDP (or GDP/capita) is a profoundly imperfect and non-inclusive measure of national well-being.In particular, GDP doesn’t count any work isn’t paid for with money — painting your mom’s house, volunteering for the Rotary Club or your church (David Brooks, are you listening?), caring for your kids and your […]

by run 75441 “The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?” A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens “That’s Baloney” stated Rep. Micky Hammon, R-Decatur, Alabama; the immigration bill cosponsor, told the Huntsville Times. “It’s clear the study over estimates the negative and under estimates the positive to skew the result toward an agenda,” […]

by Rebecca Wilder Unfounded Obsession With the Greek Minimum Wage The Greek minimum wage is apparently a point of contention between the Troika (ECB/EU/IMF) and the Greek government. The NY Times cites competitiveness gains as a rationale for the minimum wage cut: The goal of any pay cuts would be to help make Greek workers, […]

Yesterday there was a post about the participation rate that displayed a widespread misunderstanding of what the data actually shows. The labor force and the participation rate have been falling since the great recession. The following table shows that for the last three years the participation rate and the labor force have been falling when […]

Naked Capitalism posts today on the AG agreement in Settlement Breakdown by State Plus Other Official Propaganda: This agreement is very significant in how it addresses the fraud that these banks committed against many homeowners across our state,” said ___.“ This agreement not only provides much needed relief to (STATE) [Ha ha, fill in the […]

Yves comments on Wired’s Embarrassing Whitewash of Foxconn : But Johnson admits he’s a tech toy writer who apparently has no knowledge of manufacturing …. Yet he’s remarkably uninhibited in using his fantasies and abject ignorance as a basis for making sweeping generalizations about the Taiwanese powerhouse.…I find this little chart (hat tip Richard Smith) from […]

This article caught my attention mainly because I hadn’t heard much about the court battles on terminating funding for the A-12 because I thought it was done. But the inability of DOD to submit documentation that might justify that the A-12 was not viable due to classified and secret information and specs made an impression […]

Updated: Renewable Germany bailing out Nuclear France   I just read the following in an article by a Mr. Bill McKibben and thought it to be an interesting perspective on why climate change/global warming is being so vigorously denied. If we spew 565 gigatons more carbon into the atmosphere, we’ll quite possibly go right past […]