American Street Update There’s one more to-be-revealed contributor, but the list is otherwise complete: Angry Bear Bill Scher Chuck Currie Dave Johnson David Neiwert Digby Dirk Steele General J.C. Christian Jeff Alworth Jeralyn Merritt Kash Kevin Hayden Luis Toro Mary Ratcliff Mark A.R. Kleiman Ross skippy Tom Burka The most recent additions are Ross, Tom […]
Full-Scale War in the Senate? With this news, President Bush may have fired the launched a meaner, dirtier, nastier Senate than any of us has ever seen in our lifetimes. Kash
Why Are Long-Term Interest Rates Still So Low? In a thought-provoking post, Brad DeLong ruminates on the fact that bond prices yields are far below where most economists think they should be. My two favorite explanations: 1. Vast quantities of foreign demand for US bonds is keeping bond prices high. As the Treasury report mentioned […]
Foreigners Still Buying US Assets Today the US Treasury released the latest statistics on international capital flows into the US, covering the month of November 2003. It shows a few interesting and surprising things. 1. Foreign private firms and individuals increased their purchases of US stocks and bonds in November. In fact, through Nov 2003 […]
Pension Problems Not good: WASHINGTON, Jan 15 (Reuters) – The federal agency that provides a safety net for U.S. corporate pension funds said on Thursday that its deficit had more than tripled last year, to a record $11.2 billion. The U.S. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which insures the pensions of about 44 million Americans, had […]
Kash’s Call #4: Housing Market Prices My prediction is that housing prices will peak in 2004 in many (perhaps most) of the major regional markets in the US. By late 2004 or 2005 house prices will actually begin to fall in many of those markets. Why? First, because housing prices are historically high. The chart […]
Dispelling Myths About The Real Estate Market To lay the groundwork for my next prediction, let me first summarize and dispel a few commonly-held misperceptions about home ownership. Myth #1: Real estate prices never fall. In fact, housing price busts are extremely common. For some examples, take a look at the graph below, which shows […]
Offered Without Comment From the Washington Post (Mike Allen Reporting): In the winter, Bush and his heartiest alpha aides burn the towering pyramids of cedar. That may sound like a chore, but Bush would certainly rather be there than here. The early-rising president can get crabby and punchy if he doesn’t hit the pillow by […]
How Much Oxygen is There in Mars’ Atmosphere? Here’s what I think would be a really bold experiment that NASA could use to determine whether there’s enough oxygen on Mars. Build another Mars Rover. Call it Spirit II (cost: about $500 million, assuming the second one will be cheaper than the first one): Fill it […]
American Street Update As Ezra K. at Pandagon quipped, the number of bloggers at TAS is “growing by the minute too … Like liberal bacteria.” Our latest paramecium contributor is Digby, of Hullabaloo, writing about Bush’s credibility gap. AB UPDATE: Digby’s post brings to mind this exchange from Brit Hume’s interview of George Bush: HUME: […]