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

Dueling proposals

by rdan Hat tip to OMB Watch for the post on dueling papers and economists on our future federal budget dilemmas. (Most of us are ignoring the state level shortfalls to date…rdan) Drawing a picture by numbers…what the Brookings/Heritage people did not say. The Center on Budget Policy Priorities has issued its own report on […]

Telecommuting solves GW…

reader mcwop sends this book review for us to read: We looked at this issue as part of a background study in support of a book we’re working on titled Undress For Success: The Naked Truth About Working From Home to be published by John Wiley & Sons. The top part of the results form […]

WSJ: One fact about government outsourcing is settled: It sure doesn’t save money.

The Wall Street Journal has an opinion by Thomas Frank on the topic of spending by Republicans. In other articles he is very hard on the stupidity of Democratic campaigns and culture war tactics…which so far has been won by this current group of Republicans. One fact about government outsourcing is settled: It sure doesn’t […]

Industrial production in recession-recoveries

I thought I would start posting charts like this to show the major economic indicators compared to what happens historically in economic downturns. It should help people put the data in perspective.The recent parts strike in the auto industry impacted industrial production in recent months — reducing output over the last couple of months and […]

Preemption and captured markets paired together is some recipe…

New England Journal of Medicine notes: A leading drug company may be poised to win a landmark legal victory next fall. If the drug manufacturer, Wyeth, prevails in a case soon to be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court (Wyeth v. Levine),1 drug companies could effectively be immunized against state-level tort litigation if their products […]

Free

Dean Baker writes in Perspective: “Senator McCain was in Colombia last week touting his support for the trade agreement that the Bush administration had negotiated with the country. He also touted his support for NAFTA, contrasting both positions with Senator Obama’s opposition to the two pacts. McCain had an important ally in his campaign. The […]

Presidential differences and time lags to policy effects

Cactus states from last year that: Some readers have said that one cannot read much into the results of all these series, that they do not, in fact, show that Democrats do a better job at these measures than Republicans. These readers tend to want to vote Republican, and they insist that most of a […]

Free market oil drilling -what’s wrong with Bush?

Op ed by rdan Oil and gas companies should “use or lose” access to the 68 million publicly held acres where they can currently drill but aren’t. There’s no reason that companies should be able to lock up oil and gas reserves on publicly held land when we’ve made a choice as a nation to […]

Update on Presidential Performance Book

by cactus I’d like to thank Dan for putting up graphs from some of my previous posts, and for reminding people that I’m working on a book. Here’s the status: together with a co-author who currently wants to remain nameless, I completed a first draft of the book and went looking for an agent. We […]

US Air Force Tanker

by ilsm Here is a quick update from GAO on the US Air Force Tanker procurement debacle. Not to seem biased but “what were they thinking?” An oral history on “requirements”. In World War II it was obvious that the ability to haul short range, fighter aircraft around the ocean expanses would be critical to […]