Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Inflation and interest groups in the Carter Years

Robert Waldmann Matthew Yglesias is very smart, but he is not omniscient. In particular he doesn’t remember things that happened before he was born and it appears that he has fallen for some Republican propaganda. He writes In the late 1970s, it just so happened to be the case that the structure of Great Society […]

CDS zero net supply

Robert Waldmann notes that some have argued that Credit Default Swap demonization is silly because they are in zero net supply so they can’t bring down the financial system (no names or links I will be rude below). This argument is crazy. If half the financial firms end up bankrupt and the other half make […]

Poverty Belt

By Spencer This map in today’s New York Times is fascinating. It is of the counties that voted more republican this year than in 2004. But if you did a map of the poorest counties in the US it would be almost identical. It shows the people that vote to keep themselves barefoot and pregnant.

Kevin Drum makes me blow a gasket

Robert Waldmann can’t help but argue at very great length that one sentence by Kevin Drum is totally utterly completely wrong. “The public face of his economic policy, after all, was almost entirely based on tax cuts, a distinctly conservative notion.” Andrew Sable makes a much better counterargument than mine here. Mr Drum has fallen […]

Is David Leonhardt pretending Henry Paulson did his job?

Or does he know better? This year’s election coincided with an important moment in the financial crisis. The credit markets have stabilized in the last few weeks and even improved a bit. But the rest of the economy is deteriorating fairly rapidly. It’s now in danger of falling into a vicious spiral, in which spending […]

Dust and debris counts

“Dust and debris” from counting votes could foul up machine that counts votes. Huh? By Noni Mausa In most districts the voting dust has all settled, but not in Minnesota, where a contested Senate seat is so finely balanced (by 0.01% or so) that a recount is mandated by election law. I have been following […]

Being President is a privilege

by cactus What We Owe Obama What we owe Obama is… nothing. Its the same thing we would owe McCain if he were elected President. Its what we owe anyone else who becomes President. See, being President is a privilege. Its not a right, for anyone. There’s no situation in which you can say: “Well, […]

Curmudgeon vote stymied!

Dedicated to the curmudgeon wing of AB readers and commenters. Old, Grizzled Third-Party Candidate May Steal Support From McCain

The BradAltman Effect?

Is gay the New Black? Note this partial list of companies who said No on 8: Most of the state’s highest-profile political leaders — including both U.S. senators and the mayors of San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles — along with the editorial pages of most major newspapers, opposed the measure. PG&E, Apple and […]