US-Sino Currency Rap Battle
In the battle over monetary policy, things have been heating up this week at the G-20 summit. The US wants to cut the trade deficit. China and a host of other nations have over the past several years...
View ArticleGOP to Fed: DON'T Create Jobs
The Republicans are now attacking the Federal Reserve's Dual Mandate. What is the Dual Mandate? Only one of the last progressive pieces of legislation enacted before the Reagan Revolution, a cherished...
View ArticleIn Defense of TSA workers
Recently, a number of horror stories has come out regarding TSA. I have to be honest, I work with TSA. Not on the front lines, but my company does some back end work with TSA. I am very sorry about the...
View ArticleReflections on America by Heart
The Guardian has leaked some passages from Sarah Palin's much anticipated new book, America By Heart, in which she goes after President Obama. In the byline, Guardian writes, "Palin tackles areas that...
View ArticleStagnant wages feeding overcapacity
In Asia Times, Henry C K Liu begins his attack on the global economy with a potent observation: under traditional development and industrial economics, "income is all". Raising worker income is the...
View ArticleThe Gathering Storm.
Do you hear that sound? That pitter-patter, that faint rustling in the distance, like a gentle grandmother's voice calling for a child? It is soft now, yet it grows. Its source has more power than you...
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Flight to Safety: Dollar Surging Against All Major Currencies
The US dollar is currently surging against all major currencies, as North Korean threats and the impending collapse of the euro-zone means a massive flight to safety. The Europeans, led for months by a...
View ArticleWe Don't Have Anyone Good...
It's depressing that Obama sucks. But it's also depressing that there's no one good out there right now. Look, if you want someone who isn't going to sell you out, you need someone who doesn't work the...
View ArticleObama is a Piece of [CENSORED] - THE TRUTH.
I have been defending Obama here. I am sick of it. The truth is, that he is a piece of [censored]. First thing he does, is appoint Timothy Geithner. Then Larry Summers. He is bought and paid for by the...
View ArticleI DO Blame Obama
Currently there is a diary at the top of the rec list entitled "I Don't Blame Obama." The gist of the argument is that Obama is not at fault for his actions because he is merely a part of the system....
View ArticleTwo Kinds of Inflation
The past 20 or 25 years has seen a great increase in the number of economic bubbles, beginning in Japan circa 1986. Since then real estate prices have seen huge appreciations, not only here in the...
View ArticleThe Obama Tax Hike
Hidden in the $900 billion tax cut for the rich is a tax hike on middle class mortgage holders and prospective home buyers. The latter group consists of the vast majority of the Millennial that...
View ArticleWould My Diary from April 28, 2009 be Hide Rated Today?
On April 28, 2009, there was a lot of celebration here because Arlen Specter, the then 29-year Republican seniaor Senator from Pennsylvania, had switched parties. In fact, a diary made it on the rec...
View ArticleGary Gensler: in Brooksley Born's Footsteps
The battle for derivatives regulation rages on, and the CFTC, led now by Gary Gensler, is in the mix. The financial reform bill didn't end it. Bills only specify the broad outlines of reform, while how...
View ArticleFed Rules on Debit Cards Hit Banks Hard, For Now
It's not every day that an announcement from a regulatory body causes the stock of 10% in the stock of MasterCard and 13% in the stock of Visa. But that's just what happened today after the Federal...
View Article"BREAKING: GOP Picks Up 10 Seats in Senate!"
That will be the headline in November 2012 if the filibuster is ended. The GOP will almost surely have 50+ seats in the Senate after the 2012 elections, based on which seats are up for election that...
View Article"Street" Harassment
For years I worked in Washington D.C. Like most cities, if you commute to a job in the city you are forced to encounter all sorts of people. Many complain that courtesy and manners are lacking in...
View ArticleReflections on Guns
Why do Progressives tend to not get what we want? Why can't we frame the debate? I'd argue one symptom of why not is that we can't even unify ourselves. A symptom of this is the fact that on the day...
View ArticleGreek default
A default by Greece appears imminent. The country cannot collect taxes, cannot implement reforms fast enough, cannot sell assets fast enough, cannot balance its trade account fast enough, and most of...
View ArticleRoss Douthat: Mistaking Nuance for Contradiction
I recently finished reading Mara Hvistendahl's excellent book, Unnatural Selection, in which she argues against the devastating consequences of selective abortion of girls in Asia. A review of this...
View ArticleAnother Left-Wing Populist Wins in a Landslide
This isn't exactly breaking news, but it hasn't been diaried yet that I can see. Over the July 4 weekend, there was a huge victory for democracy, a huge victory for left-wing populism in Southeast...
View ArticleGermany, Not What It Seems
Sometimes to get a handle on who is doing something wrong you need to see how many are doing it. For example, suppose that Jack, Jill, Bill, Belinda, Melinda, Mark, Lark, and Larry are going on a...
View ArticleMass Shootings in 4 States
One. Three people are dead and one critically injured after a shooting late Friday at a motorcycle rally in Mormon Lake in northern Arizona, according to the Coconino County Sheriff's Office. The...
View ArticleThe Debt Ceiling Crime.
The real debt ceiling crime is not that the agreement finally passed by the House contains no revenue raisers, nor that it cuts trillions at a time of recession and double-digit unemployment (let's...
View ArticleState Revenues Sharply Higher
A new report from the Rockefeller Institute shows that "robust revenue growth" at the state level continued for the fifth consecutive quarter at the start of 2011, following five straight quarters of...
View ArticleTotal Meltdown! Hang Seng Down 7.5%
Selloff is accelerating in Asian markets on top of yesterday's loss. I do not believe this is just about the S&P downgrade any more. This sell-off has taken a complete life of its own. Hang Seng...
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The Scariest Chart You've Seen Yet
Above is a chart of the "yield" on German and French government debt. Much like US Treasury "bonds", "bills", and "notes", the European debt also have specific names. The German bond is called the...
View ArticleMy Economic Plan
My economic plan is simple: have the government print $10 trillion. Then give $10,000 to every household in America. I am quite serious. Yes there will be some inflation as a one-time effect, but the...
View ArticleShould We Just F@#k Everything?
Thinking about the various problems with the economy, and looking at the various ideas that people have, it appears to me that overall, what people want most is the liquidation of the financial system...
View ArticleHow Can We Recover from Obama?
How can we ever recovery from the disaster that is Obama? It is clear now that the Obama Presidency is a mitigated catastrophic failure, but a catastrophic failure nonetheless. A Presidency...
View ArticleContractionism Rules the Day
The sickness that pervades the global economy in the West is contraction-ism--- the moralistic doctrine of take your medicine, pay for your mistakes, suffering is noble. First there is a great agony...
View ArticleShock Doctrine is Destroying Europe
I'll be honest. I never read Naomi Klein's 'Shock Doctrine', and I have been pretty skeptical about her actual sophistication when it comes to the ability to debate economics. I only heard of the...
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Is France about to default?
To the left is a chart of the difference between interest rates charged Germany and France since late 2006. The higher the difference, the more worried investors are France will default, hence they...
View ArticleThe Banking System is not the Enemy
The banking system is not the enemy. Banks play a critical role in our society. Whether big or small, they essentially do the same thing-- financial inter-mediation. That is, they bring together those...
View ArticleDepressed.
I've been pretty depressed by world trends over the past year. First you have the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt which originally were supposed to be about freedom but now seem to be getting taken...
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Obama's Deficits
One of the big Republican talking points in this election will be "debts exploding under Obama". This is grossly misleading. Never mind that Obama inherited a $1.4 trillion deficit from Bush, who put...
View ArticleCommunitarian Themes in the 'Hunger Games' (Spoilers)
"A toast to my big brother George: The richest man in town." So ends It's a Wonderful Life, probably the most well-known film with a communitarian climax, where the lead character George, both finds...
View ArticleIn Defense of Hilary Rosen
The media narrative on the Hilary Rosen / Ann Romney controvery is way out of hand and the outrage is completely manufactured. Politico now asks: "Dem war on Moms?" That is the height of absurdity....
View ArticleNo, They Don't Understand! Pt. 1: The Role of Government
Each side understandably tends to focus on the issues that favor them. However, I want to step across the aisle for a moment and engage the Republicans on their own issues. The central arguments of...
View ArticleThe Single Fact that Explains Why this Recovery is Slow
Whenever Republicans talk about not enough jobs being created or the recovery being slow and blame it on overregulation or Obama’s policies, it angers me. A single fact can explain why the recovery...
View ArticleWhy Austerity Doesn't Work
Deficit hawks think of government, and indeed all economic actors, as a household: just as households' finances improve when they spend less and save more, so will national economies do better if...
View ArticleWhy Romney's Plan would HURT Small Business.
I have worked for small businesses since the start of my career, and before that in college. And I have noticed a glaring loophole in Romney's argument that cutting income tax rates on businesses will...
View ArticleI think I swayed an undecided voter tonight
I had a great conversation with an undecided voter tonight phone banking. It's not the first time it's happened, but I had a particularly in depth conversation with this gentleman. It was a really...
View ArticleUsing the Debt Ceiling Against Republicans?
The whole idea of the upcoming debt limit showdown enrages me-- after all, it's inherently contradictory and hypocritical on the part of Congress to first pass laws mandating certain spending, and then...
View ArticlePPP - Hillary with lead in Texas
I know it's early, and I already knew Hillary polls strongly, but wowza.The results are within the margin of error, but Clinton leads Marco Rubio 46% to 45%, Chris Christie 45% to 43% and Rick Perry...
View ArticleDPRK Preparing for Multiple Missile Launches
Tensions are escalating quickly on the Korean peninsula.Officials in Seoul say there are possibilities that the North may fire off several missiles from different sites, in case of an unsuccessful...
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Internet Commenters Figure Out Obamacare
This is the top reccommended comment on Politico right now on an article on the Affordable Care Act. I'll admit the article got me feeling a bit down, but that all changed when I read the comments. It...
View ArticleI've just sent the following letter to my Senators (Ebola)
Dear Senator __, No one wants to die of ebola. The current outbreak in West Africa is unprecedented and unique in that it has not been quarantined and is out of control. The local countries, Doctors...
View ArticleI'm proud of the Hillary Clinton campaign.
This year, I had the honor of spending a lot of time to volunteer for Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton. I cherish every moment of it, and would do it all again.We DID make history this year. We became...
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