Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

If there was a Public Option in PPACA, what grounds would the Supreme Court use to overturn it?

The above is a more-than-semi-serious question. I’ll be blogging/tweeting the Kauffman Foundation’s Bloggers’s Forum tomorrow from 9:30-3:30 EDT (8:30-2:30 here in Kansas City; 6:30-12:30 in DeLong/Thomaville; in Hawaii, they’re still watching Dave Garroway). You can tell it has reached maturity because tomorrow’s presenters include J. Bradford DeLong, Scott Sumner, Tyler Cowen, and Karl Smith—and that’s […]

Big Changes at Capital Gains and Games

I go away for a week and the world collapses. While most of you probably noticed that Russell Brand is available again, the other Major Separation was at Capital Gains and Games, which is now exclusively Stan Collender’s as “principal writer and managing editor.” It is also rebranded “Stan Collender’s Capital Gains and Games.” (The […]

Random Notes 3 June 2011

Buce has been on fire recently, so I’ll probably have to do a post about why this post is so off-target, though his conclusion is correct (short version: he’s been misled). If I’m reading this morning’s SIFMA Brief correctly, Moody’s—whose rating skills Robert has discussed at length—(1) may downgrade US debt if we spend too […]

Kauffman Economics Bloggers Forum Update and a Few Links of Noe

I’m in Kansas City, where the Royals have started the season as one would expect of the current iteration of the team. Fortunately, I’m not here for the baseball, but rather for the Kauffman Economics Bloggers Forum. There will be presentations tomorrow (agenda here; homepage for live streaming here) in three session. The morning features […]

We Beat the Germans in 1918/And They’ve Hardly Bothered Us Since Then

Brad DeLong culls the comments to this post at Crooked Timber to produce a “with notably rare exceptions” Greatest Hits package—his second post riffing on the original—in honor of The Maestro continuing to attempt to improve the reputations of Paul Volcker and Ben Bernanke, if not G. William (“I ran a company, I didn’t need […]

One Less Blog to Answer: No More "Girl Economist"

Between deadlines and strange website blockages, I missed this yesterday. Via Steve Randy Waldman (whose “Interfludity” is blocked) and Mark Thoma (whose isn’t) comes Really Bad News: To all Maxine Udall Girl Economist Readers: It is with great sadness that we bring you the news that Dr. Alison Snow Jones, aka Maxine Udall, Girl Economist, […]

The 20 Most influential finance blogs

“Most investors would acknowledge that social media is playing an increasing role in their investment decisions,” observes the UK Web site Mindful Money. “Yet no-one has mapped the emerging network of influence likely to be playing a crucial part in those decisions.” Until now.The presentation below provides a fascinating map of financial media influencers. The […]

Other Voices, Other Blegs

We try to pretend we’re not actually human sometimes. And sometimes we have to decide not to pretend. Many of the Life Cycle Theory models for economics assume limited borrowing constraints: you can’t borrow more than you will make (present valued), but you can borrow on future earnings. You can only do that for so […]