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

Fareed Zakaria on Social Security, Fareed Hearts Pete Peterson, Disses your mom

by Dale CoberlyFareed Zakaria on Social Security Fareed Hearts Pete Peterson Disses your mom Fareed Zakaria wrote an essay for Time, The Baby Boom and Financial Doom. Dean Baker responded to Zakaria with Fareed Zakaria is unhappy that the American left chooses arithmetic over Peter Peterson. Baker makes the point that the increase in the number […]

After selling the election

In a previous post Fiscal cliff and the frenzy  I pointed to the rush of reporting the day after the election. Some of these articles should be in the op-ed section instead of reporting. Lori Montgomery “Avoiding hard decisions could have grave consequences, analysts say…”         …  Few expect Washington to replicate the […]

Barack Obama’s carefully crafted economic populism carries the day…and then the next three months?

Three writers point to the need to maintain energy and attention to the Obama Grand Bargain. Mark Weisbrot at The Guardian writes on Barack Obama’s carefully crafted economic populism carries the day: The media are a huge factor in most elections in the US, and outside of Fox News and the rightwing press, most of the […]

Biden…"I flat guarantee you"

Mark Thoma takes a poke at Joe Biden’s guarantees on SS  in  No Changes in Social Security: I wish I could believe this. Biden guarantees: ‘There will be no changes in Social Security’, by Michael O’Brien, NBC News: …”Hey, by the way, let’s talk about Social Security,” Biden said…”Number one, I guarantee you, flat guarantee […]

WHAT KOTLIKOFF (REALLY) SAID

by Dale Coberly WHAT KOTLIKOFF (REALLY) SAID Larry Kotlikoff responded to my post in comments (Social Security: It’s Just Math). by saying that I (coberly) “wrote quite a lot about something I [Kotlikoff] didn’t really say.” He has a point. I based my speculations about where he obtained his misleading numbers on an NPR summary […]

SOCIAL SECURITY: IT’S JUST MATH

Update: By Dale Coberly (was inadvertently omitted as author, although regulars know and the label names him) SOCIAL SECURITY: IT’S JUST MATH or how to lie with numbers “Math doesn’t lie” seems to be the new focus group tested mantra  about Social Security that Congressmen and their journalists are so proud to repeat.  What it […]

ARITHMETIC MATTERS

by Dale Coberly ARITHMETIC MATTERS I was thinking that someone could fault my essay the other day about the “Intelligence Squared” debate. I said that Howard Dean’s side did not really help anyone understand why, or what, or how to “save the program.” I hope I helped explain the why and what, but I probably […]