rdan The Washington Post reports that: Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) is circulating the outlines of sweeping health-care legislation that would require every American to have insurance and would mandate that employers contribute to workers’ coverage. The plan in the summary document, provided by two Democrats who do not work for Kennedy, closely resembles extensive […]

Robert Waldmann It may turn out that the value of the Geithner put given to banks in the PPIP will not be huge. Many people including me worried that the legacy loan program was a huge scam, because loans were to be bought with up to 85% of the money a no recourse loan from […]

by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt Paying for Health Care Reform President Obama’s ambitious health care reform plans may have run into an immovable object – money. In order to move forward on his plan the President has to find and/or reallocate something on the order of a trillion dollars. One means of expanding health care […]

Robert Waldmann Kevin Drum argues that it is a very bad thing that financial firms can pick their regulator For what it’s worth, I’d say that having a single bank regulator is long overdue. The current structure not only doesn’t make sense, but allows banks to shop around for the most lenient regulator they can […]

Robert Waldmann This post is an act of solidarity with DeLong’s heroic civil disobedience of absurd intellectual property restrictions. Brad writes (in full Brad. All’s fair with those who ignore “fair use” restrictions). Jacob Viner (1933), “Balanced Deflation, Inflation, or More Depression” Perhaps the most important single document with respect to how much the Chicago […]

By Spencer: The yield curve is strongly positive, and this is getting all kinds of blog comments. They range from Arnold Kling saying “in my view, this is perfectly rational, and it shows that the short-run effect of the fiscal stimulus is negative” To Greg Mankiw saying “that it signals future economic growth. In many […]

He decides to consider current income the only determinant of savings. He writes of Sonia Sottomayer “My grandmother would have been shocked and appalled to see someone who makes so much save so little.” True and one can understand his grandmother’s total lack of appreciation for the work of Milton Friedman. Professor Mankiw, however, knows […]

By divorced one like Bush Hello everyone. Things have been hectic, so no time to blog. But, I thought these two videos would be of interest. They are Hans Rosling presenting his data via his program that animates the changing statistics. Even the most worldly and well-traveled among us will have their perspectives shifted by […]

by Bruce WebbThe above two figures are from CBO’s Aug 2008 study on long-term Social Security solvency. I am not going to discuss them in depth but just point out that we trap ourselves when we say Oh-mi-God Social Security depletion moved back from 2041 to 2037!!” when the reality is that it is just […]