Did he come to bury or praise Suppy-Side Economics?

Bruce Bartlett has just released a new book–and a mea culpa of sorts– for supply side economics (SSE). As an ex-aide to the late Jack Kemp and author of a book on Reaganomics, Bartlett’s got an interesting perspective from having a seat near the table. He also takes a few undeserved potshots [...]

Death by Bubble

Economist Andy Xie says Lehman Brothers died in vain and that it’s just a matter of time before we get hit by another deadly bubble. His guest post at Caijing Magazine is just so dead on that you must go read it.
There has been plenty to learn from last year’s miserable economy [...]

Who Holds Wall Street Accountable?

If your answer included any of number regulators or congress with its oversight duties or the traditional media with its watchdog of the public duties sorta answer, that would be a wrong answer. There were so many articles today about past and present Wall Street tomfoolery that I almost forgot [...]

Some times being Right doesn’t always make you Feel Good

You may remember back in January that I was not happy and very outspoken about the size of the Obama Stimulus plan. I was not impressed by the content or with the mix between tax cuts and direct government spending. You may recall that the Blue Dogs interminable resistance to do anything that might [...]

It’s still about the Jobs!

I keep repeating this like a mantra, but an economy that relies on households buying 70% of it’s production, and households that rely on wages for 67% of their income, is not going to get healthy until it creates more jobs. That’s why Robert Riech, Paul Krugman, and this Cajun Country Economist are still [...]

A Dismal Labor Market

I started the big lecture in macroeconomics on unemployment with a very out of date textbook. It isn’t even that old in terms of textbook cycles. It’s just the world economy has changed; really changed. The last unemployment data I was looking at came from 2007 and a world of hurt and [...]

The Bear Whisperer

Bless his little heart. He called for “common sense” rules for Wall Street. He had sharp words of warning for those who didn’t learn the lessons from Lehman Brothers and the global financial crisis. Isn’t that nice? We no longer have to “speak softly and carry a big stick”? [...]

Speechification Alert

Well, it’s my turn to listen to a Obama Speech. Those speeches usually have the same dizzying effect on me that tennis matches do. Instead of watching balls go back and forth rhythmically while lulling me to sleep, I get to watch the head of the President. Teleprompter Right, 1,2,3 to [...]

If you think you’re worse off now, you’re right and not alone

I put this article from yesterday’s NYTimes in the comments section of my thread yesterday. I’m not sure every one read it so I thought I’d front page it. It’s on the increasing poverty and median income declines in the U.S. as reported by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) and [...]

The Blame Game

It’s amazing to me that so many people can get so worked up about one mid level bureaucrat in the White House who is a repentant communist and says he accidentally signed a 9-11 truther petition thinking it was just a request for more information on what the White House knew prior to those terrorist [...]