Kerry’s Budget This will contain some interesting information about Kerry, though probably very little that we couldn’t already guess: WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Amid charges he has over-pledged on the campaign trail, Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry will detail “sooner rather than later” how he would halve the U.S. budget gap in four years, a top […]

Expecting Incorrect Expectations What’s wrong with this headline? Betting on a jobs pop: Traders seem to think Friday’s employment number will be better than expected This must reflect some usage of the word “expected” that I am unclear about. Kash

The Costs of Trade Distortions Yesterday the CBO released its response to a request by Congressman Bill Thomas for an economic analysis of the effect of the US’s current anti-dumping laws, which were modified in 2000. The modification of 2000 required that, if a US firm accuses a foreign firm of dumping, and if that […]

Dude, Where’s My New Honda Accord? It’s hard to wrap your mind around $1,800,000,000,000, which is the total additional payroll taxes workers have paid into the Social Security Trust Fund since 1983. There were about 110 million people in the labor force in 1983. This following is just a ballpark, since I’m not compounding the […]

I Always Liked Kerry Best There you have it, Kerry’s the nominee. He wasn’t really my early favorite, but the more I hear and see of Kerry the more I like him. To see how Kerry’s likely to do in Minnesota this fall, based on the jobs picture there, see my latest at The American […]

The Sucker You can’t play Three-Card Monte without a mark, a patsy, a sucker. Guess who’s playing the sucker in Greenspan’s shell game? Since 1983, American workers have been paying more into Social Security than it has paid out in benefits, about $1.8 trillion more, so far. This year Americans will pay about 50 percent […]

Three-Card Monte Following up on Kash’s earlier post about Greenspan, Krugman’s op/ed also highlights a fairly bold bait and switch maneuver by Greenspan: The payroll tax is regressive: it falls much more heavily on middle- and lower-income families than it does on the rich. In fact, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates, families near the […]

When Will China Overheat? Today Greenspan (not my favorite person these days – see the preceding post – but anyway…) made some remarks about China: WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) — China could be forced to limit its dollar purchases to avoid excessive economic growth, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan warned Tuesday. “China’s central bank purchases of […]

Krugman on Greenspan’s Remarks In today’s NYTimes column, Paul Krugman has some things to say about Greenspan’s shockingly partisan testimony on Capitol Hill last week. The most interesting parts of his column are the three conclusions that Krugman draws: First, “starving the beast” is no longer a hypothetical scenario — it’s happening as we speak. […]

Haiti I’m not quite sure what to make of this, but it’s definitely weird: Spokesman Scott McClellan said the allegations have no basis. “It’s complete nonsense!” He said Mr. Aristide was not abducted or kidnapped and consulted with the U.S. Embassy in Haiti on the best way to give up power and get out of […]