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

Advance Durable Goods Orders

By Spencer; The new data that durable goods orders jumped 4.9% from June to July is a nice indicator that the economy is bottoming and it clearly beat expectations. Yes, a large part of the jump was civilian aircraft orders that tend to be lumpy, but even excluding civilian aircraft orders jumped1.9% month to month.On […]

Project for a New American Century

Statement of Principles June 3, 1997 American foreign and defense policy is adrift. Conservatives have criticized the incoherent policies of the Clinton Administration. They have also resisted isolationist impulses from within their own ranks. But conservatives have not confidently advanced a strategic vision of America’s role in the world. They have not set forth guiding […]

Ted Kennedy dead at age 77

rdan Boston.com carries a lot of material on Senator Kennedy’s life and politics, including comments from President Obama and Governor Schwarzenegger. The man had a huge impact on American government.

Echo comments

rdan Lots of comments did not “stick” yesterday, although there has been a problem intermittently in the last two weeks especially. Please wait for all “reply” “delete” links to appear at the bottom of your comment to confirm the servers keep it. I believe that a delay in processing is part of the problem. When […]

Fiscally Conservative Districts ?

Robert Waldmann Via Ezra Klein I read Collender thinks this is wrong for two reasons. First, the Democrats with the most difficult reelection battles are the freshmen elected in Republican-leaning, fiscally conservative districts. They’ll need something to show for their time in Washington, and along with the Blue Dogs, they may well be able to […]

Conservative Historical Awareness: Does ‘Falange’ Violate Godwin’s Law?

by Bruce Webb I ask people to examine the following labels and concepts:Arbitrary ExecutivePermanent MajorityHomeland SecurityNew American Century Did any of these labels or the concepts behind them come from the Left? Well no and we could easily assign names to people associated with each, for example we could name in the same order Addington/Yoo, […]

Trends in home values: becoming murky

by Rebecca Wilder Actually, murky is something of a good thing when referring to business cycle dynamics. It usually means that a bottom is forming. In some sense, the key to recovery is the stabilization of home values. If home values would just “stop” declining – I understand that there is a market mechanism going […]

Nazis

rdan Mudflats has the story of her dad to tell. My own father was navy, in the Pacific, and had a different story to tell. I have nothing to add. …When he was 20 years old, he’d been taken prisoner by the Germans at the Battle of the Bulge, was marched for miles, imprisoned, and […]

Somewhere Peter G. Peterson is weeping.

by Bruce Webb People who follow the issues around what is known as the Entitlements Crisis are more than familiar with Peter G. Peterson a co-founder and financial sponsor of the Concord Coalition and a man who has devoted a billion dollars of his own money to endow the Peter G Peterson Foundation. The PGP […]

Debt fueled consumption

rdan Rebecca Wilder will begin writing as a Bear soon. Meanwhile, she maintains her own blog NEWSNECONOMICS. Here is an example of an Aug. 19,2009 post, which I am cross posting today, and a follow up post here. There were several questions raised, but I think it an interesting notion. I own an old Malibu […]