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

Obama’s First Fifteen Months, Composite Edition

Brad DeLong has two posts, one from Ezra “I’m a liberal who is safe for the Washington Post” Klein and one from Mike “I actually looked at the data” Konczal. Brad deals with Ezra’s folly: I think a B+ is too high a grade–largely because one big task of 2009 was to set up the […]

It’s not the tax and spending cuts, it’s the destroyed trust that has doomed our economy

By Daniel Becker In the comments to my post “A reminder from Obama’s February 2009 speech”, there is the following: “I guess it relates to the fake Obama they had made up in their heads,…”  This sums up the early comments to the post suggesting that those who trusted Obama have only themselves to blame. […]

A reminder from Obama’s February 2009 speech

By: Daniel Becker In answer to the generic question regarding President Obama’s actions regarding the debt ceiling, I am re-posting this from 2/25/09.  In comments of the original I stated that cutting the deficit by 1/2 seemed to “optimistic” for me. *************************** Ok, here are my basic issues with the substance of President Obama’s speech. […]

Once more: I WANT MORE SPENDING!

by: Daniel Becker Ok some more information to bolster my position that my flower shop being down this year another 4.5% compared to last year (at least the decline is leveling off) is not the results of government debt or too much taxation or banks not lending or unions… nope, my shop is off because […]

Let the tax cuts go and you actually stick it to the top for real.

By: Daniel Becker (DOLB) On Countdown (12/9/10), Keith had on Thomas Buffenbarger, president of the International Machinist Union. It was a chance for an “I told you so moment”in that Mr. Buffenbarger noted while campaigning for Secretary Clinton that President Obama would not be a fighter. Go watch the episode. I made my position on […]

The Class war summed up in quotes

By Daniel Becker I just want to lay out the debate going on in our economy right now. There are 4 debaters. President Obama/Geithner et al, President Obama 2008, the rich (or capitalist, those who make their money from money) and the rest of us. From President Obama’s 60 Minute interview: PRESIDENT OBAMA:…And it turns […]

Bernanke Interlude

Via David Wessel’s Twitter feed, the WSJ publishes a letter: Ben Bernanke is a good person, a fine academic and a well-respected professor. But those traits have no bearing on whether he should be reconfirmed as Federal Reserve chairman…. Applying accountability principles, there’s no way Chairman Bernanke should be reconfirmed by the Senate, let alone […]

Hoisted from Comments (thought not here)

UPDATE: D-Squared chimes in, saying in less than 100 words what took me a couple of thousand (though with no quotes): After the “first hundred days” in the term of a new Democratic President comes the next stage; the almost impreceptible transition among his supporters from saying “of course, he’s been hampered by all sorts […]