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

Canceled debate

A link to the past With new polls showing his campaign dead in the water among California Republicans, Arizona Sen. John McCain has pulled out of a long-scheduled debate with Texas Gov. George Bush, set for Thursday in Los Angeles. McCain campaign officials tried desperately yesterday to put the best face on their withdrawal, even […]

Fiddling While Rome Burns

By Spencer While Congress fiddles and postures it might be informative to look at two highly reliable leading indicators of world economic growth. The first is the Dry Ships Index of various daily bulk cargo rates. Over time this has proven to be a highly sensitive leading indicator of world economic activity. About half of […]

Financial Arsonists ?

Robert Waldmann Many people are using the term “arsonists” as a loose metaphor for people who share the blame for the current financial crisis. They aren’t suggesting that anyone actually wanted a financial crisis. Cocking my tinfoil hat I will note that it is entirely possible that someone has been making out like a bandit […]

Advance Durable Goods Orders

By Spencer The advance durable goods numbers are not reassuring. The unsmoothed total orders were down 4.5%. Although the monthly data is very noisy, the smoothed data is also showing weakness as the apparent rebound over the previous two months disappeared. Clearly, the data peaked last year and is trending down with no signs of […]

Act Now! Now! Now!

by cactus Act Now! Now! Now! How nice to hear GW tell us that we have to act now! now! now! or we’re doomed. He gave us that same line in 2001 with respect to tax cuts. He got his tax cuts, the economy tanked, and our surplus died. He gave us the same line […]

Panic, not even at the Disco

UPDATE: Not even the Wall Street Journal editorial page fell for McCain’s “reasoning”: So count us as mystified by Senator John McCain’s decision yesterday to suspend his campaign and call for a postponement in Friday’s first Presidential debate so that he and Barack Obama can work out a consensus bill to stabilize the financial system. […]