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

New Data on Outsourcing The BLS released new estimates this week of the number of jobs lost in the US to outsourcing. The BLS data lends support to an argument that I have made here before: outsourcing has not been a major source of the weak US labor market. Note that the BLS data is […]

The Reagan is Full Tonight Given Reagan’s status as “the greatest leader of the free world in the 20th Century,” I think this suggestion from physicist Robert Park’s latest newsletter is a great idea: THE REAGAN LEGACY: AN EPONYMOUS EPIDEMIC GRIPS WASHINGTON. The Ronald Reagan Legacy Project is dedicated to making sure that Americans are […]

Gmail So apparently Gmail is a hot commodity, though prices are falling as Google increases supply (fancy that!). As part of the expanding supply, Gmail is now offering me the chance to invite others to have Beta access. I don’t know how many I have, but if any long-time and/or frequent commenters would like an […]

Giblets, Fafnir, and The Medium Lobster If the title of this post is a mystery to you, then you should click here to read the Parable of Chris’s Stuff. AB

Moral Clarity I’m glad to see that Bush is taking the lead in providing “moral clarity”. From yesterday’s press conference: QUESTION: Mr. President, I wanted to return to the question of torture. What we’ve learned from these memos this week is that the Department of Justice lawyers and the Pentagon lawyers have essentially worked out […]

Fighting the Reagan Economic Myth In today’s NY Times, Paul Krugman makes an attempt at halting the avalanche of Reagan myth-building that we’ve had to endure this week. It’s a good effort, but I’m skeptical that his voice of reason will be heard above the roar of the delirious crowd. Kash

Postcards from Old Europe – Fed Watching Last Friday saw the release of payroll data for the month of May. As most of you know the number came in at a not too hot, not too cool +248k. The accompanying data was heartening as well, with the workweek rising to 33.8 hours. More work means […]

Thoughts on This Week’s News I’m back from a nice two week vacation, which was a good break not only from work, but also from the news. I’ve just started catching up on my reading, including PGL’s excellent work here on Angry Bear while I was gone. On the whole, it seems that it was […]

Ok, so you love Ronald Reagan … … but you’re unsure whether Reagan’s overall bestness-at-everythingness necessarily means that you have to love George W. Bush as well? Well fret no more. In this masterful hard-news piece (really, it’s “news” not “commentary” or “analysis”), CBS kindly solves your dilemma: Reagan and W. Bush are exactly the […]

Government variations on Enron accounting Kash returns tomorrow so I thought I’d have my last post cover another one of my pet peeves that covers public finance concerns and a twist on how financial economics impacts tax contorversies. Janet Yellin’s “The Bringe Mentality in the Federal Deficit” drew a parallel to what Wall Street has […]