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

Income and spending decline: the back end of January stimulus payments

February personal income and spending decline: the back end of January stimulus payments by New Deal democrat Last month I wrote that the: “report on January personal income and spending shows just how important the stimulus packages enacted by the federal government both last spring and last month have been to sustaining the economy.” The […]

 Atrios is an economist and reminds us of an option not taken: I don’t think Bernanke can legally start mailing checks tous, though I think when he hits the “emergency powers” button he canprobably do just about anything, but it isn’t said often enough by theright people that there are alternatives to giving free money tobanks, such […]

I want spending, I want spending, I WANT SPENDING!

By: Daniel Becker There is some new information from Adam Hersh of Center for American Progress showing what has happened in the states that have followed the conservative economic approach (yes, talking to you Obama, DLC, Clintonites).  Keep cutting at your own risk. Here’s the thing.  Like the Wile E Coyote, we seem to have […]

Math is Math: There Was No "Second Stimulus"

One of the best rules in mathematics is that, to determine the value of all the variables, you need only as many distinct equations as you have variables. (previous sentence edited for clarity.) So let’s combine a couple of recent articles (h/t Mark Thoma for the first, Digby for the second.) Richard Florida finds three […]

A scaled model of debt driven stimulus

by divorced one like Bush Well, here is what I’m doing to support the US of A’s economy. It’s a lesson in the real model of economics. It is a scaled version of the concept of stimulus. I even did it by using financing just to make the model as close to real as possible. […]

Government Site to Check

Mish sends us to “Track the Money,” recovery.gov’s breakdown of where funds have been sent and spent. He’s not happy, but I suspect he’s suffering the Jared Bernstein Problem: only looking at one side of the equation. But—and this is the key “but”—the reason it is right to do that is that ARRA money has […]

Small Business topic

rdan H/T Naked Capitalism for this New York Times article concerning the loan program established in May to help small businesses as part of the stimulus program. With $255 million, the program is prepared to make about 10,000 loans of up to $35,000 each. As of Monday, the agency reported that only 1,127 loans, totaling […]

Stock market under Obama

By Spencer: Well at least the stock market seems to like Obama’s economic package. But every day I listen to CNBC analysts and others who seem to believe they did better under Bush’s and want to stick with the policies that generated a 40% stock market decline.

RIlands Governor, Stimulus money means Trickle Down policy

by Divorced one like Bush So you have been reading about the southern GOP’ers that are refusing parts of the stimulus money. Something about being true to their crede. Well, we here in RIland have a GOP governor who is doing one better. He want the money! The problem is in how he plans to […]

DOLB’s Punditry on Obama’s speech

by divorced one like Bush Ok, here are my basic issues with the substance of President Obama’s speech. First, may I remind everyone that as of 11/08 I declared my divorce successful. Has it become my mission accomplish moment? I heard this: “And we will expand our commitment to charter schools. but as a father […]