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

Disaster Aid Disaster Averted, barely

By Linda Beale Disaster Aid Disaster Averted, barely. Once again, Republicans intent on obstructing the normal operation of the federal government unless they can extract cuts to programs they don’t like (in the name of deficit reduction) applied the combination of House recalcitrance and Senate anti-majoritarian filibuster to threaten a government shutdown and siderail needed […]

Republican candidates and taxes

Think Progress carries quotes from the Presidential contenders and election slogans The release of this plan immediately spurred the natural Republican tax apoplexy, with the GOP presidential candidates decrying tax increases as a surefire way to destroy jobs: MITT ROMNEY: President Obama’s plan to raise taxes will have a crushing impact on economic growth. Higher […]

Prostate Cancer Advance, and Europeans Free Riding on American Research

by Mike Kimel There’s a story going around in the news about a new prostate cancer drug. Here’s press release: A life-extending new drug to treat patients with advanced prostate cancer, developed by The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) and The Royal Marsden Hospital, has received its UK license. Abiraterone acetate, marketed by Janssen under […]

Angry Bear contributor now at Economonitor

Angry Bear contributor Rebecca Wilder has begun writing her own column, The Wilder View, at the internationally prestigious Economonitor (Nouriel Roubini). The Wilder View at Economonitor Europe: Why the One-Size-Fits-All Solution Won’t Work and Linking sovereign risk to corporate credit spreads in Europe …and is interviewed and quoted by Floyd Norris in the New York […]

Health Care Thoughts: No CLASS Act

Health Care Thoughts: No CLASS Act The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports, aka CLASS, was to be an integral part of PPACA (Obamacare), providing a funding source for some part of long-term care costs. When DHHS Secretary Sebelius declared she would have to fix the program because the poor design was not financially viable, […]

PSA: Steve Keen at the Roosevelt in NYC tonight at 5:00/6:00

Talk is called “Neat, Plausible, and Wrong: the Deluded Discipline of Economics.” I have to quibble with the “plausible” portion: there is no possible way to rationalize contemporary Microeconomics with any reasonable conceit that the Macroeconomics produced are “first-best” or anything similar.* I doubt I’ll be there at 5:00, but certainly by 6:00. Hope to […]

Felix Salmon comments on media bias

Felix Salmon comments on media bias at Seeking Alpha: But let’s not kid ourselves that there’s any particular reason why global stocks are falling. And especially, let’s not try to invent some spurious reason for the fall, be it broad and inchoate (“global economy fears”) or weirdly specific (“Federal Reserve pessimism”).…As a general rule, if […]