The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Ruh-Roh, Again: Chinese Now Worried About Inflation, Raise Interest Rates

First, the end of QE2, and now Beijing tightens up credit: China staged its third interest rate increase since October on Tuesday, the latest sign of the authorities’ intensifying efforts to temper the blistering pace of economic growth and prevent already worrisome inflation levels from escalating further. The central bank in Beijing raised its benchmark […]

Ruh-Roh: Fed to End QE2?

How will markets react to the end of “quantitative easing”? Today, Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher . . . said that he will not support any further QE expansion beyond the current $600 Billion Treasury buying program which is set to expire in June. The era of fiscal stimulus is over and now, if the […]

How Screwed Are We?

For more than a year, I’ve been warning against the idea that we are in an economic “recovery.” It’s not just the disturbing persistence of an unemployment rate above 9 percent. That’s the symptom, not the disease. What the U.S. economy is suffering from, and what no amount of neo-Keynesian “stimulus” can remedy, is a […]

A Reverse Piven Strategy?

by Smitty Tyler Cowen’s little book, “The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All The Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better” is interesting, but I’m nonplussed by this notion: Right-wing ideas, in their least viable forms, have become more popular in this political environment. From the American right, tax cuts […]

Labor Department Blames Snow for Increase in Weekly Unemployment

It’s kind of a dog-ate-my-homework excuse: More Americans than forecast filed first-time claims for unemployment insurance payments last week, indicating it will take time for the labor market to mend. Applications for jobless benefits increased by 51,000 to 454,000 in the week ended Jan. 22, Labor Department figures showed today. Economists forecast 405,000 claims, according […]

America, the Doomed

Thank you, Democrats, for creating the Ponzi scheme that will bankrupt our nation: Sick and getting sicker, Social Security will run at a deficit this year and keep on running in the red until its trust funds are drained by about 2037, congressional budget experts said Wednesday in bleaker-than-previous estimates. The massive retirement program has […]

Obama: ‘Countless New Jobs’

— photo via Instapundit “In a few weeks, I will be sending a budget to Congress that helps us meet that goal. We’ll invest in biomedical research, information technology, and especially clean energy technology – an investment that will strengthen our security, protect our planet, and create countless new jobs for our people.” — President […]

$14,000,000,000

Fourteen trillion dollars — that’s the national debt, the 800-pound gorilla to keep in mind as you listen to Obama’s State of the Union speech: From Citizens United.

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