I thought I would start posting charts like this to show the major economic indicators compared to what happens historically in economic downturns. It should help people put the data in perspective.The recent parts strike in the auto industry impacted industrial production in recent months — reducing output over the last couple of months and […]

New England Journal of Medicine notes: A leading drug company may be poised to win a landmark legal victory next fall. If the drug manufacturer, Wyeth, prevails in a case soon to be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court (Wyeth v. Levine),1 drug companies could effectively be immunized against state-level tort litigation if their products […]

Dean Baker writes in Perspective: “Senator McCain was in Colombia last week touting his support for the trade agreement that the Bush administration had negotiated with the country. He also touted his support for NAFTA, contrasting both positions with Senator Obama’s opposition to the two pacts. McCain had an important ally in his campaign. The […]

Cactus states from last year that: Some readers have said that one cannot read much into the results of all these series, that they do not, in fact, show that Democrats do a better job at these measures than Republicans. These readers tend to want to vote Republican, and they insist that most of a […]

Op ed by rdan Oil and gas companies should “use or lose” access to the 68 million publicly held acres where they can currently drill but aren’t. There’s no reason that companies should be able to lock up oil and gas reserves on publicly held land when we’ve made a choice as a nation to […]

by cactus I’d like to thank Dan for putting up graphs from some of my previous posts, and for reminding people that I’m working on a book. Here’s the status: together with a co-author who currently wants to remain nameless, I completed a first draft of the book and went looking for an agent. We […]

by ilsm Here is a quick update from GAO on the US Air Force Tanker procurement debacle. Not to seem biased but “what were they thinking?” An oral history on “requirements”. In World War II it was obvious that the ability to haul short range, fighter aircraft around the ocean expanses would be critical to […]

by coberly A reader at Economist Mom offered the following story on her daughter wants a trust fund post. “… this post reminded me of an exchange I had with our five-year-old. I fronted him $10 for something he wanted when he forgot his wallet. When it was time to pay his allowance I told […]

Is there a sane purpose to this? As long as more homeowners default on mortgages, losses to financial institutions will mount. Those losses already exceed $400 billion, and some analysts believe they will top $1 trillion before the housing carnage is over. By comparison, Congress has authorized $650 billion so far to fight the Iraq […]

Somehow the concept of means testing has entered the Social Security dialogue right along side that of cap increases. Don’t let people trick you into going down that path. Each seems on the surface to be a reasonable and progressive step but instead they are being dangled in front of you by people opposed to […]