It’s the holidays. Time for some color on the AB. Happy Holidays!by divorced one like Bush

by cactus Hubbard’s New Nonsense The only thing that comes to mind after reading this from James Kwak (hat tip: Mark Thoma is WTF: After seeing dozens of mortgage proposals emerge over the past several months, there are news stories that Larry Summers and the Obama economic team are converging on an unlikely candidate: the […]

A Vicious Cycle Ohio and Michigan are falling apart. In the case of Michigan, it is literal. Pieces of bridge deck are falling onto cars on I-94. Infrastructure maintenance is that far behind. To put this into perspective, the two states lost more manufacturing jobs since the start of the 2000-2001 recession than total jobs […]

by Bruce Webb 2008 Financial Report of the United States Government (Report) provides the President, Congress, and the American people a comprehensive view of the Federal Government’s finances, i.e., its financial position and condition, its revenues and costs, assets and liabilities, and other obligations and commitments. The Report also discusses important financial issues and significant […]

cross posted from ataxingmatter Madoff’s ponzi scheme tax losses and union workers’ home losses Wall Street has not had a good year (and of course, the taxpayers have borne the brunt of the resulting chaos). Credit default swaps, for several years the darlings of the industry, have become a giant albatross around taxpayers’ necks, especially […]

by cactus Ignorant Decision Makers in the Public Sector, Ignorant Decision Makers in the Private Sector I once had a rant about attorneys. I noted: I remember something my father, a physicist, once said about Bill Richardson when Richardson was Secretary of Energy. My father doubted that Richardson could come up with a reasonable definition […]

rdan Wallet Pop points to a game at the Economist that takes work to put together from pdfs. Update: The picture is from the Economist and is as big as it is going to get.Update 2: Go to the bottom of the Economist page for two pdf links for an enlarged picture and printout

lifted from Robert’s Stochastic thoughts: David Rose has an important article in Vanity Fair about Torture He argues, at very convincing length with extensive specific evidence, that statements extracted by torture are completely unreliable — what the tortured person thinks the torturers want to hear. He definitely claims that José Padilla’s alleged dirty bomb plot […]

rdan Not forgotten, but set aside as a national concern. And many still do not know how the water gets to their faucet (for real, not a generic idea), and selling water rights goes on. We will be ‘surprised’ and ‘no one saw it coming’ comments will fill our ears. Loss of water comes in […]

sent by David Zetland The Bailout Explained Young Chuck in Montana bought a horse from a farmer for $100. The farmer agreed to deliver the horse the next day. The next day he drove up and said, “Sorry son, but I have some bad news, the horse died.” Chuck replied, “Well, then just give me […]