Bruce Bartlett: Government Spending and the Economy
"I think that much of the criticism of the stimulus legislation on both sides of the political spectrum has been misplaced. Liberals tend to decry the small overall size of the original package, while conservatives say it was too big. But p erhaps the very limited allocation for investment and consumption was the problem."I will point out that, even if the stimulus was entirely investment and consumption spending, it would have still been too small. If all that money were spent in 2009, it would have amounted to a mere 5% of GDP, significantly smaller than the WWII-sized stimulus needed for us to escape the Great Depression.
Obama proposes $1B for science, math teachers
One major issue with unemployment is that many workers do not have the skills needed to fill available positions. Fulfilling the demands of a given field of expertise seems like a no brainer.
Why do ‘experts’ always lowball clean-energy projections?
"Last month, Michael Noble of Fresh Energy put up a fascinating list of projections made by energy experts around 2000 or so. (I got there via Brad Plumer.) Suffice to say, the projections did not fare well. They were badly wrong, and all i n the same direction — they underestimated the growth of renewable energy. It’s worth quoting the whole list"Obama’s Right Wing
The conservative Obama supporters, or "Obamacons," are almost all old-guard conservatives of the Goldwater and Reagan era. The modern GoP left them behind over a decade ago and they are struggling to bring the GoP back to its glory days, ba ck when they championed free market values but were also willing to criticize its shortfalls. Mostly, Obama's foregin policy decisions have dissappointed them over these last four years, but they mostly realize the alternative is much worse.
How Much Will the Supreme Court's Obamacare Decision Cost the Federal Government?
CBO projects a net cost decrease for each state that opts out, while AAF projects a net cost increase.
In other words, we still don't know how this will play out. Stay tuned.Wall Street Legend Sandy Weill: Break Up the Big Banks
"He said banks should be split off entirely from investment banks, and they should operate with a leverage ratio of 12 times to 15 times of what they have on their balance sheets. Banks should also be completely transparent, Weill said, with everything on balance sheet. “There should be no such thing as off balance sheet,” he said."
Love Classic Republican Foreign Policy? Vote For Obama
"Whatever you may think of Obama’s domestic and economic records (which we can debate some other time), on foreign policy he has delivered the post-partisan, pragmatic, and generally successful policy he promised." (emphasis mine)
"First: in foreign affairs, are we better off than we were four years ago? Answer: yes. Second: on the geopolitical scene, have we experienced any grave crises or setbacks? Answer: no. And that is why Romney has so little to say."
"human rights activists and neocons deplore Obama’s slowness to jump into the fray when rotten and antagonistic old orders tremble in places like Iran, Libya, Egypt, and now Syria. Eisenhower and Bush, however, understood well the importance of looking before leaping, whether in Suez and eastern Europe in the 1950s or in Ukraine and the Balkans in the early 1990s. Obama is in their mold"Expert: Conservatives' Favorite Study on Same-Sex Parents Is "Bullshit"
"The UT study was never going to be a silver bullet anyway, since it would not be constitutional to say, ban marriage among poor people just because a study showed that they turned out less successful than the children of rich parents. But opponents of marriage equality who were hoping this study might provide a stong, non-religious argument against same-sex marriage ought to realize it doesn't."Llana Yurkeiwicz at Science Progress also makes this point.
Anti-Semitism, Islamism and Islam
"Nevertheless the point has to be made. The actions of Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, the Revolutionary government in Iran are obviously not a good interpretation of Islam. They are also demonstrably not an interpretation follow ed by most Muslims today. But they do not come from nowhere. Just as a very strong part of Christianity’s problem with Jews came from Christian scripture and the use of those scriptures by Christian leaders, so a very strong part of the problem some Muslims have with Jews comes from Islamic scripture and the use of that scripture by Islamic leaders."
A tale of 2 US employment surveys, at a glance
"Most Americans focus more on the unemployment rate, which comes from the household survey. But economists generally prefer the jobs figure from the payroll survey."Skepticblog: It’s official: Texas GOP bans critical thinking
N. Carolina bans science from guiding decisions
Given the lowering rates of mail use, the post office's priorities of flat rate mail and universal service are becoming more and more of a burden.
Fox News distorts yet another science story.
Evidently it has always been okay to target and kill "imminent threats" without trial, until they have the magical tag of American Citizen that somehow means they are now people with rights, unlike non-citizens...
Boycott chick-fil-a, but don't let the government persecute them.
Forget all the compaining about oustourcing. The reason so few jobs stay in the US isn't merely labor costs, it is the lack of skille workers in comparison to other countries. Romney is focusing on the wrong problem.
More conservatives are starting to admit what liberals have been saying since 2008, that Sarah Palin was a teerible choice for VP!
David Frum goes over a quick rundown of the popular beliefs for why some cultures prosper and others don't.
Eyewitness Testimony is unreliable.
Should we bring back Glass-Steagall?
Quiz: Is Romney really more Pro-Israel than Obama?
Some of the dirty laundry in Romney's Olympics deal
No comments:
Post a Comment