The latest data regarding the personal income received by Americans has me slightly worried. The headlines of stories about today’s BEA news release have been along the lines of “Real spending falls 2 months in a row“. But I’m actually more concerned about real income growth. Take a look at the following picture. It shows […]

The opinion of Bush’s newest nomination to the Supreme Court, Samuel Alito, regarding the abortion issue will undoubtedly receive a flood of attention in coming weeks. But Alito’s opinion regarding the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), signed into law in 1993 by Bill Clinton, also seems deserving of close scrutiny – particularly since it […]

On Friday, the BEA reported GDP (advance) for the third quarter 2005. The BEA reported that Residential Investment was still robust at an annual rate of $761.5 Billion or 6.05% of GDP. The following graph shows Residential Investment as a % of GDP for the last 40 years. The booms and busts of the housing […]

For a moment, I thought the National Review’s Andrew McCarthy had a major change of heart on this matter: The claim that Libby is being smeared with the allegation that he leaked classified information even though he hasn’t been charged with it, and that because he has not been charged he has no way to […]

Tom Nugent joins Victor Canto in praising the appointment of Ben Bernanke to head the Federal Reserve: Bernanke, like Greenspan and Volcker, will take a price-rule approach … Since 1982, some supply-siders have believed that the Fed shifted from a quantity rule for monetary policy to a price rule. In other words, the Fed gave […]

Kash provided a few details as to the news about real GDP growth during the third quarter. William Polley compares this news to the news for last quarter noting what we said back then: Final sales of domestic product grew at a 5.8% annualized rate with the difference between growth in sales and the growth […]

This morning the BEA released its very first stab at estimating economic growth during the summer of 2005 (July, August, and September). From the news release: Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — increased at an annual rate of 3.8 […]

Kash has motivated me to do a little Google searching on something called “starve the beast” theory. How Tax Cuts Feed the Beast by Daniel Shaviro is a neat title but does not get to the point raised by Daniel Lambo. Shaviro does note: On the campaign trail, President Bush is busy telling voters that […]

I can’t believe that a someone who writes things like the garbage that Donald Lambro offered up today can still claim to be a “nationally syndicated columnist”: Mr. Riedl and the GOP’s other critics are right to keep the heat on Congress to curb spending, but in the end — as Mr. Bush has shown […]

Max Sawicky supported the nomination of Harriet Miers for reasons he well expressed. I was not convinced. However, I highly endorse Max’s latest: *No more “up or down vote” claptrap from the wingnuts. They advocated her pre-emptive withdrawal, so there is no onus against a committee preventing any appointment from coming to the Senate floor, […]