New rules finalized last week by the U.S. Department of Education are good news for students and taxpayers. For all topics except “gainful employment,” this was the final step of the negotiated rulemaking process initiated by the Department more than a year ago to ensure the integrity of the federal financial aid programs. Among other […]

It was fascinating watching Jack Welch on CNBC this morning. He kept talking about how we needed to sacrifice to balance the budget. But at the same time he kept pushing that the Bush tax cuts had to be preserved. I kept wanting to ask Welch what he was willing to sacrifice to balance the […]

by Bruce Webb Okay readers and Bears, give me a hand here, because some of our standard narrative on ‘unsustainable’ US debt seems to be turned on its head. The standard narrative is simple: we have $13 trillion in US Treasury debt, and most of it, or at least the new issuances are dependent on […]

Auto and light trucks sales rose from 11.76 million to 12.26 million in October, a 4.25% gain. Since the bottom auto sales have been rising at a 10% to 12% annual rate — depending on if you calculate the trend as a linear or an exponential trend and October sales were right on this trend […]

by Linda Beale Why taxes are important crossposted with Ataxingmatter The so-called tea party adherents and many libertarians, treat taxes as robbery, thinking that “it’s mine and the government has no right to it.”  That crazytalk, which most would realize if they ever had the opportunity to live in the brute-force world of no taxation.  […]

by Rebecca Wildercrossposted with Newsneconomics G4 GDP, reaction ECB It’s complicated. The ECB is currently juggling two objectives: perpetually assuaging bond investors in the face of a shaky financial system, and managing policy for an economy with a single currency and sovereign government issuers. But is it really so complicated? The chart above illustrates the […]

Robert Waldmann Matthew Yglesias is puzzled by something Paul Krugman wrote. I don’t totally understand this argument, however: It’s also crucial to understand that a half-hearted version of this policy won’t work. If you say, well, 5 percent sounds like a lot, maybe let’s just shoot for 2.5, you wouldn’t reduce real rates enough to […]

Robert Waldmann Nate Silver gives five reasons that Republicans might do better than his model predicts and five reasons that Democrats might do better. I add two more possible reasons that Democrats might do better after the jump. They are numbered 3.1 and 3.2, because they are variants on his third reason More on likely […]

Floyd Norris discovers a mathematical impossibility: Asked to rank, on a scale of one (excellent) to five (poor), the ability of their board’s compensation committee to “effectively manage C.E.O. compensation, 83 percent of the directors chose one or two, and only 4 percent picked four or five. But asked, “In general, do you believe U.S. […]