The White House has announced that economics adviser Larry Summers is leaving. I’ve been anticipating this move for quite some time (see this), and I’m certainly not the only one (see this). The real question is: why is Summers leaving? … Continue reading →
…all your money really belongs to us anyway, so why not just skip the middleman: you! Perhaps it’s only a matter of time, although for now the proposal is still considered “radical:” The UK’s tax collection agency is putting forth … Continue reading →
Labor Day is the bookend on the opposite end of summer from its holiday beginning, Memorial Day. July Fourth is its early peak, with the promise of many long light-filled days ahead. But Labor Day is summer’s last gasp, the … Continue reading →
Summary of this month’s job report: the news is not good. Summary of Obama administration reaction: hey, it could be worse! Well gee, isn’t that always the case? And isn’t it largely irrelevant? Just about everybody knows the truth. Even … Continue reading →
Boehner is grandstanding here, IMHO. Not gonna happen—although if they had any integrity, they would have voluntarily resigned long ago. And even if it did happen—who would replace them? I can’t imagine it would be an improvement. No, the fish … Continue reading →
Amity Shlaes, author of The Forgotten Man—a book about the Great Depression—applies herself to the economic differences between Maine and New Hampshire today. As a New Englander, I know these two states (and Vermont and Massachusetts and Connecticut and Rhode … Continue reading →
Part of the lively discussion recently on this thread and then this one centered on the plight of Michigan Democrats who are disillusioned with what their party’s done for them lately, and who are thinking of switching to (gasp!) the … Continue reading →
Joel Kotkin details the rise, and then the perplexing decline and fall, of the great state of California. It turns out that Californians were the barbarians at their own gates; it was an act of self-destruction, fueled by the unforeseen … Continue reading →
Ah, have sympathy for us poor (in the literal sense of the word) boomers, even though many of you hate our aging guts: …[C]urrent and prospective retirees have been hit on many fronts at once: They have less money, they … Continue reading →
Please read this cri de coeur, found on a comments page at the WaPo, written by commenter “sayoung809132001” and posted on August 7, 2010 at 1:07:14 PM,: I urge the new republicans who are now running to reach out to … Continue reading →
Why is Oakland having to cut back on its police services, to the point of not responding to forty-four categories of crime, including grand theft? As Josh Barro writes, it depends on what the meaning of “afford” is: At current … Continue reading →
Here we go again: another 2000-plus-page bill that is a pastiche of disparate elements that no one quite understands. It doesn’t do much to change the things that contributed most to the financial debacle in the first place (including both … Continue reading →