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

Another Blogging Economist Ragout. I’m a bit late in noticing this blog (3.5 months old), but it looks like good stuff, check it out. AB

David Frum violates Canada’s “Professional Political Punditry” Standards Canada is having an election this week and Ira Basen is demanding better campaigns and commenting on “The Spin Cycle”. This piece is directed at former Bush speechwriter David Frum as he opines on the Canadian political scene. Rules #3 and #4 are speak simply to “staying […]

A Symposium on Offshoring Last week, the Brookings Institution held a day-long symposium on the offshoring of services to foreign countries. The list of invited speakers included many of the world’s top trade and labor economists. While the text of the presentations is not yet available, the symposium’s website does link to various excellent background […]

Sec. Powell Should Read Imperial Hubris Condoleezza Rice refused to comment specifically on “Anonymous” because, “I don’t know who Anonymous is.” In an interview with Wolf Blitzer Secretary of State Colin Powell said: I don’t know who he is. I haven’t read his book. I think what we are seeing are an insurgency in Iraq […]

Giblets on Gephardt I can’t add anything to this (except approving laughter): Dick Gephardt. Gephardt would have an amazing pull with loser voters, voters who like losing the House to opposing parties, voters who have a long history of being supported by decrepit and dying labor institutions in failing political campaigns, just people who generally […]

Fahrenheit 9/11 I Still haven’t seen it, but I plan to on Thursday or Friday. In any case, it already broke the record for a documentary and was the top-grossing film of the weekend. As I recall, some conservatives used the fact that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix knocked Hillary Clinton’s Living […]

Bruce Bartlett says taxes must be increased And asks an interesting question: Taxes have to increase. Do you want Democrats at the helm when they do…The package will have to reduce the deficit by at least two percentage points of GDP annually to meaningfully affect financial markets and restore confidence, and it is unrealistic to […]

Speaking of Iraq… As PGL notes below, the party line from the Republicans on Iraq has changed from “it will be easy and over with before you know it” to “no one ever said it would be easy.” Well, the same thing goes for prediction’s about Iraq’s oil production. Wolfowitz famously said that Iraq’s reconstruction […]

Have a Beer as You Watch the Video of the Iraq War Newt Gingrich on Meet the Press Sunday after Tim Russert brought up Imperial Hubris: If you read the whole book, he says this is harder–and I think this is the key point that you were driving at a minute ago, Tim. This is […]

Poetic Justice Michael Moore deserves this: The Political ‘Fahrenheit’ Sets Record at Box Office LOS ANGELES, June 27 — Michael Moore’s anti-Bush “Fahrenheit 9/11” became the highest-grossing documentary of all time on its first weekend in release, taking in $21.8 million as it packed theaters across the country this weekend. The movie, mocking President Bush […]