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

Howard Zinn…not in our high schools either

Henry Giroux says of Howard Zinn: Howard was one of the few intellectuals I have met who took education seriously. He embraced it as both necessary for creating an informed citizenry and because he rightly felt it was crucial to the very nature of politics and human dignity. He was a deeply committed scholar and […]

Cui Bono? The Kindle

John Scalzi makes a clear case that Amazon’s determination to subsidize the Kindle is coming at the expense of Authors’s and their Publishers: This asinine jockeying over electronic book prices has very little to do with what’s actually good or useful for anyone other than the manufacturer of a piece of hardware… who also happens […]

Beware of Doug

Robert Waldmann The Congressional Budget Office is different from you and me. Their forecasts are authoratative — literally. The rules of the House and the Senate refer to CBO estimates and forecasts not some debatable underlying reality. Hence this slightly edited dialog Sen. Max Baucus, Chairman: [skip]We’re not in the old situation where Sen. Grassley […]

Welfare Reform

Robert Waldmann is back I didn’t mean to stop blogging for so long. I apologize. I also apologize for this post which is one of my occasional screeds against welfare reform. Oddly there seems to be almost a consensus that welfare reform was a good policy. I think this is based entirely on the fact […]

Who Voted for Brown in Massachusetts — and Why?

by Maggie Maharcrossposted with Health Beat Who Voted for Brown in Massachusetts — and Why? The media continues to report that the Massachusetts vote was a referendum on health care reform — and that this has the White House worried. If so, the White House is wrong. Take a look at polling conducted by Hart […]