guest post by Coberly A few years ago the Social Security Trustees began publishing a warning that went something like this: “After the year 2040 Social Security will only be able to meet 75% of promised benefits.” You may have gotten this message in the mail, or heard it while waiting to talk to Social […]

rdan Fiscal conservatives that involve two parties is bi-partisan, not non-partisan. And David Walker is hardly objective at this point. A new religion emerges on fiscal responsibility that hardly peeped over the last decade, and appears to be mainly obstructionist instead of responsible. Looks to be the time the battle intensifies. Dean Baker, Bruce Webb, […]

rdan Robert Reich gets it right. Here is the post. Do not confuse American companies with American jobs. The new stimulus bill, for example, requires that the money be used for production in the United States. Foreign governments, along with large U.S. multinationals concerned about possible foreign retaliation, charge this favors American-based companies. That’s not […]

rdan Reader Laurie sent this note from an NPR Morning Edition. The following quoted section caught her attention, and she wondered what was wrong with the explanation. It made me wonder if other readers had similar questions, even though we have covered part of the question of nationalization (as have Roubini and Krugman) here, here, […]

Matthew Yglesias doesn’t share the common view that gerrymandering has caused congress to be more partisan. He notes a recent paper (pdf here) by Princeton’s Nolan McCarty, UCSD’s Keith Poole, and NYU’s Howard Rosenthal and quotes a bit and I quote a bit of that bit Both pundits and scholars have blamed increasing levels of […]

By Spencer. The drop in industrial production is approaching the worse in the post WW II era. The index with 100= peak current ….90.11957-58…86.61974-75…87.01981-82…90.6 So only the 1958 and 1974 industrial production declines are more severe than the current downturn.

by Bruce Webb In comments there were requests for a clear unitary narrative summing up my view of Social Security. This is more difficult than it sounds because of the competing narrative is so simple and compelling: Boomer retirement hits Social Security, the latter itself goes ‘Boom’, lets do something now to mitigate the blow. […]

What my brain wants to do: Bank capitalisation, stress testing, book value, and discussion of other data that clearly indicates the need for the nationalisation of several LARGE banks. What my brain is currently capable of doing: The cheerleader who saves the world? Hayden Pantierre (Heroes) George W. Bush (ex-President of the USA) Christy Carlin […]

rdan Economist’s View carries a post at VoxEU by Mike Elsby, Bart Hobijn, Aysegul Sahin. This especially caught my attention: Figure 1 also highlights a curious fact absent in popular discussions of the crisis. Unemployment in the US had already begun to ramp up in early 2007, long before the official recession start date in […]

guest post by run75441 Occasionally, I have raised the issue of Participation Rate in decline since Oct/Nov 2001 or the official end of the 2001 recession. Participation Rate is the ratio between the Civilian Non Institution Population and Civilian Labor Force in the BLS Household Unemployment Report. From 1970 until 2001, the overall trend has […]