The BEA has just released its estimate of personal income in August. The headline figure is that there was a 0.4% increase in personal income during the month, which is roughly in line with economists expectations. But month-to-month reports like this are notoriously volatile, so I think that year-on-year comparisons are much more informative. The […]

The show was in rare form tonight, leading off with some razzing of Bill O’Reilly for saying that The Daily Show’s audience is “stoned slackers”, when in fact the Daily Show audience is both more educated and more knowledgeable about current events than the Factor’s audience. Then a bit of bipartisan ribbing of Bush and […]

This blog is properly named “sayanything” as evidenced by this claim: John Kerry and his left-wing surrogates would have us believe that the Bush administration is going to re-instate the draft if re-elected… As part of his 100 day plan to change America, John Kerry will propose a comprehensive service plan that includes requiring mandatory […]

Bush has accused Kerry of endangering the economic recovery with his proposal to raise taxes on income over $200,000. Bush’s claim is that this will raise taxes on “the 900,000 small businesses and entrepreneurs who pay at the individual rate and who are creating most of the new jobs in our changing economy.” Breaking with […]

In contrast to what I suggested yesterday, the head of the Kansas City Fed thinks that current oil prices will have little effect on the US economy. From CNN/Money: “As long as oil prices do not rise significantly higher, the likely effects of recent increases will be relatively modest on the U.S. economy,” Kansas City […]

If you want to see a bleakly pessimistic picture painted of the sustainability of the US’s current account deficit, take a look at this paper by Nouriel Roubini and Brad Setser. They argue that, within a very few years, the US’s net international debt will be too large for the deficits to continue, and that […]

A number of people I’ve talked to lately are fairly pessimistic about Kerry’s chances, which is probably due to the recent swath of polls showing Bush with either an implausibly large lead (12+ points) or a modest but consistent lead (3-5 points). So I thought I’d share some of the good news that’s out there. […]

Each Tuesday until the election, I will try to review one of the five chapters in the Bush-Cheney Agenda for America. Today’s review is directed at Chapter 1’s Creating Opportunity for America’s Workers, which has as its highlights: • Reforming America’s High Schools: President Bush will provide $250 million annually to extend state assessment of […]

The price of oil is hovering around $50/barrel today, a new record in nominal terms. The chart below shows the spot price of oil over the past few years. Source: EIA. Yes, it’s true that oil prices were higher in the early 1980s in real terms. Yes, the oil shocks of the 1970s were about […]

I just received my absentee ballot. It contains a couple of state-wide referendum questions. Here is the entire text of one of them: “Do you want to limit property taxes to 1% of the assessed value of property?” YES or NO Q: What’s wrong with the way this referendum question is posed? A: See AB’s […]