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

National Review v. Alice Rivlin on Fiscal Policy With the CBO projecting gross Federal debt to rise from its $6760 billion level at the end of 2003 to $9920 billion level by the end of 2008 (an average annual increase of $632 billion a year), the comment from Johan Goldberg at The Corner on National […]

Winning the Senate Wandering over to Illinois Senate Candidate Barack Obama’s campaign blog, I see some very encouraging poll results: * Overall, Barack leads 52 percent to 30 percent * Barack leads among independent voters, 46-27 percent * Among voters who consider themselves “very conservative”, 31 percent intend to vote for Barack * Among white […]

What puts the Angry in Angry Bear? Stories like this: The FBI is investigating an intercepted Iranian message that alleges Iraqi exile leader Ahmed Chalabi told Tehran officials that the United States had broken Iran’s secret code, U.S. officials said. The message alleges Chalabi said he had been told about the code-breaking by a drunken […]

Say Hello to PGL He’s the latest guest-blogger, graciously filling in while Kash and I are on vacations — Kash from now to about the 10th and me from tomorrow to around the 10th. PGL is yet another economist, so his posts should be chock-full of economic goodness. “PGL” stands for “pro-growth liberal”, which I […]

$400 billion $540 billion and No Extra Votes? Sometimes crass politics turns out to be bad politics. Bush first lies about the cost of the Medicare Drug Bill, then rams it down conservatives’ throats, having the House Republicans hold the vote open into the wee hours of the night, then bribes and threatens a congressmen, […]

Kerry Needs a Catch Phrase So goes a story on Keith Oberman’s Countdown. My suggestion may have been “Just Tell the Truth” but I may have been reacting to Dick Cheney’s attack on Kerry’s position on the Patriot Act, which Hardball said was all lies. But then, it was Dick Cheney’s speech after all. The […]

The Great Questions of Blogging Brad DeLong may have stepped into a hornet’s nest. No, not in this post on Kerry’s health plan, but in this post on punctuation. Brad takes exception to the title of a recent book on punctuation, “Eats, Shoots and Leaves,” writing First of all, there definitely needs to be a […]

Navel-Gazing at The NYT Many other blogs are covering the Times‘ ongoing mea culpa process for basically accepting and reprinting White House spin on WMD in the run-up to the Iraq War. For example, in his latest bit, Editor Daniel Okrent writes To anyone who read the paper between September 2002 and June 2003, the […]

Kerry’s Campaign Now you don’t have to just take my word for it that Kerry’s playing it smart. Bill Clinton thinks so too: May 28, 2004 | New York — Former President Clinton said Thursday that Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry is smart not to comment daily on every development in Iraq because “he recognizes […]

Personal Saving Personal income headed in the right direction in April — up 0.4% in real terms according to today’s BEA report. This is not particularly surprising, since we already know that employment growth was strong in April, but it’s good news nonetheless. Interestingly, consumers did not spend all of this increase in income. In […]