Bad Employment Figures The BLS just released its new employment estimates. The unemployment rate in February is estimated to be 5.6%, unchanged from January. The more important statistic, the number of jobs in the US economy, grew by just 21,000 in February. This is a BAD number – average expectations among economists were that payrolls […]

Seen on The Front Page of CNN.com Today U.S. to launch 24/7 hunt for bin Laden: “U.S. forces searching for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden along the mountainous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan will soon implement high-tech surveillance tactics in the region, enabling them to monitor the area 24 hours a day, seven days […]

Not Much To Say Brad likes Kerry’s budget guy. Atrios and CalPundit find more right wing demagoguery and hypocrisy. Howard Stern continues to rip into Bush and the righties. Matt Welch has some questions, inspired by the vapid Elisabeth “Really quick, is God on America’s side” Bumiller, that John Kerry still needs to answer (via […]

It’s because they’re stupid, that’s why. That’s why everybody does everything Read. Then laugh or cry as is your wont. At some point, can we just move Austin and its residents to some other state, give Texas over to the fundamentalists and evangelicals, and then let Texas secede? Maybe we could bring Houston along too, […]

Kerry’s Budget This will contain some interesting information about Kerry, though probably very little that we couldn’t already guess: WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Amid charges he has over-pledged on the campaign trail, Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry will detail “sooner rather than later” how he would halve the U.S. budget gap in four years, a top […]

Expecting Incorrect Expectations What’s wrong with this headline? Betting on a jobs pop: Traders seem to think Friday’s employment number will be better than expected This must reflect some usage of the word “expected” that I am unclear about. Kash

The Costs of Trade Distortions Yesterday the CBO released its response to a request by Congressman Bill Thomas for an economic analysis of the effect of the US’s current anti-dumping laws, which were modified in 2000. The modification of 2000 required that, if a US firm accuses a foreign firm of dumping, and if that […]

Dude, Where’s My New Honda Accord? It’s hard to wrap your mind around $1,800,000,000,000, which is the total additional payroll taxes workers have paid into the Social Security Trust Fund since 1983. There were about 110 million people in the labor force in 1983. This following is just a ballpark, since I’m not compounding the […]

I Always Liked Kerry Best There you have it, Kerry’s the nominee. He wasn’t really my early favorite, but the more I hear and see of Kerry the more I like him. To see how Kerry’s likely to do in Minnesota this fall, based on the jobs picture there, see my latest at The American […]

The Sucker You can’t play Three-Card Monte without a mark, a patsy, a sucker. Guess who’s playing the sucker in Greenspan’s shell game? Since 1983, American workers have been paying more into Social Security than it has paid out in benefits, about $1.8 trillion more, so far. This year Americans will pay about 50 percent […]