The big news on the blogosphere today concerns parking meters in Chicago. Matt Yglesias is thrilled. Kevin Drum less so. Drum writes A private company has agreed to give City Hall an upfront payment of almost $1.2 billion to run Chicago’s parking meter system for the next 75 years. 75 years seems a wee bit […]

By Spencer The employment report was bad almost across the board. The monthly index of hours worked fell 1.0% to 104.7. Compared to the last quarter average of106.1 this implies that 4th quarter hours worked are falling at about a 5% annual rate. When you compared the employment drop in this cycle we are now […]

Among their editorial suggestions for replacing Tim Geither as head of the New York FRB: Better choices would include …David Malpass, an economist who worked at the Reagan Treasury and long predicted the credit bubble…. Yes, you saw that correctly. David Malpass. Strangely, they don’t describe him as “David Malpass, former Chief Economist for Bear […]

Brad DeLong sends us to Rex Nutting at MarketWatch: U.S. nonfarm payrolls plunged by an astonishing 533,000 in November, the worst job loss in 34 years, the Labor Department reported Friday. It’s only the fourth time in the past 58 years that payrolls have fallen by more than 500,000 in a month. Since the recession […]

rdan My sentiments about buying locally translate to where I spend my dollars…there is room for both small business and big boxes, but we all vote with dollars. If not careful, I sometimes forget the paint returned at no charge, or the thoughtful advice and knowledge from the local paint and wallpaper store, or the […]

ataxingmatter Linda Beale makes a statement: The International Banking Association wants more tax goodies from Uncle Sam–for branches of foreign banks. The idea seems to be that anything that has been done for domestic banks ought to be available to them too–even when it is Treasury’s decision not to enforce a clear statement of Congress […]

by cactus The Smartest Morons in the Room Back when Enron imploded, I was wondering to myself about the motivation of some of the players. I can understand the greed and fraud, and the looking aside when fraud was being perpetrated. I like to believe that I would never get caught up in that, but […]

rdan SEC. 125. CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT PANEL.(a) ESTABLISHMENT.—There is hereby established the CongressionalOversight Panel (hereafter in this section referred to asthe ‘‘Oversight Panel’’) as an establishment in the legislative branch.(b) DUTIES.—The Oversight Panel shall review the current stateof the financial markets and the regulatory system and submitthe following reports to Congress:(1) REGULAR REPORTS.—(A) IN GENERAL.—Regular reports […]

rdan The NYT describes the beginning role of the committee and chairman Elizabeth Warren to follow the money, in addition to GAO report. …“You can’t just say, ‘Credit isn’t moving through the system,’ ” she said in her first public comments since being named to the panel. “You have to ask why.” If the answer […]

by cactus Passing on Corporate Taxes to Consumers and the Bail-Out There seems to be relatively irrational belief among many conservatives that corporate taxes are simply passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. It leaves out the obvious – if companies felt they could simply raise prices, they’d do it whether there […]