In both of the first two debates, Kerry charged that “95 percent of our containers coming into this country are not inspected today. When you get on an airplane, your bag is X- rayed, but the cargo hold isn’t X-rayed. Do you feel safer?” Both times, Bush responded “we’ve tripled the homeland security budget from […]

Via the Gadflyer, the center-right British magazine, The Economist, sent surveys to 100 academic economists (“We chose their names, at random, from among the referees of the American Economic Review, one of the profession’s more prestigious publications.”) of their views of Bush’s handling of the economy; 56 responded: More than 70% of the 56 professors […]

Editorial Note: Because this post turned out so long, I’m breaking it into two parts. The current post gives some motivation and then describes and presents the data, but with little interpretation. I’ll give my interpretation and comments in Part II. In a fantastic post on Friday, Kash showed how truly poorly the Bush II […]

This year’s winners are Kydland and Prescott. Atrios and Stirling Newberry provide nice summaries for non-economists of some of their principal insights. Let me just add two quick thoughts. First, I’ve never been convinced that the “real business cycle” model (i.e. the idea that recessions are the result of negative supply shocks rather than demand […]

Failure in Iraq would be a disaster. I think most of us, including Bush and Kerry, agree to that statement. If Iraq remains a state steeped in chaos and lawlessness, it will remain a breeding ground and safe haven for terrorists. It will ensure that US credibility in the Middle East remains in tatters. So […]

Uggabugga’s got the details. In fact, the market seems to already be exacting a price for SBGI’s nonsense — this plan may not make it past the shareholders. AB UPDATE: A quick check of Sinclair’s board reveals 4 inside and 4 outside directors, with the insiders including the CEO David “Solicitation Arrest” Smith. So this […]

The transcript of Wolf’s interview with the Treasury Secretary can be found here. After Wolf noted the fall in employment per the Payroll Survey, Snow first makes excuses and then offers: If you look at, Wolf, and this is important to make – a point to make. If you look at the broader survey of […]

Bush apologists used to note that the current unemployment rate is near the average during the Clinton years, which forgets that unemployment fell during Clinton’s Administration and has increased under the current Administration. Now they are comparing to the current 5.4% unemployment rate to the average rate since 1948, which has been 5.6%. This comparison […]

Kevin Drum wrote a post about Bush’s statement during the debate that he has restrained spending growth. As Kevin points out, his statement turns up into down and black into white. However, Bush didn’t pull his figures out of thin air. The exact phrasing of his statement was “Non-homeland, non-defense discretionary spending was raising [sic] […]

Was it just me, or did Bush come across as pretty angry and defensive? A couple of times, it seemed to me that he was so agressive with his answers that he was almost yelling at the poor person asking the question. Did anyone else have that impression? However, while Kerry was speaking Bush did […]