The Other McCain

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

The Very, Very Bad President

It is nowadays said by many that Barack Obama is the worst president in American history. If this is so, President Obama will have eclipsed a mark that most observers believed would stand unchallenged until the final trumpet: The abysmal record of James Earl “Jimmy” Carter. One of the reasons, I believe, that so many […]

Bubble Bursts? Wall Street Tumbles, as Silver Prices Slump on Margin Hike

DJIA . . . . . . 12,584.17 –139.41 (-1.10%) S&P . . . . . . 1,335.10   –12.22 (-0.91%) NASDAQ . . . 2,814.72  –13.51 (-0.48%) The headline this morning was another one of those “unexpected” bits of bad economic news: Jobless Claims in U.S. Unexpectedly Jump Due to Anomalies What’s up with that? […]

Housing Sales Data ‘Badly Flawed’?

What if we were in the second dip of a double-dip recession and, because of inaccurate measurements, we didn’t even know it? That’s one possible interpretation of John Schoen’s story at MSNBC: Two high-profile reports on home sales this week confirmed that the housing market is still mired in a deep slump with prices still […]

BREAKING: Tax Deal Falling Apart?

Here’s the situation: In order to get the deal, Obama needs Republican votes in the Senate. If the Senate GOP filibusters, there’s no deal. But the House Democrats don’t give a damn: House Democrats have passed a resolution saying they’ll reject President Obama’s tax deal with Republicans. . . . The House Democratic Caucus passed […]

Economics for 11-Year-Olds

Thursday, after I picked up my kids from school, we were listening to the news on the car radio and something prompted my 11-year-old son Jefferson to ask, “Dad, what’s a recession?” So I explained that the official designation of recession is two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth — a decline in the gross domestic […]

SOS: Sissypuss, Obama, And Skippy

by Smitty Sissypuss was all set to review the POTUS prime-timer, and then Stacy blew town for Alaska. Fortunately, Stacy’s goth twin Skippy was in between rehearsals with “Lips Can’t Go”, his Alien Sex Fiend tribute band, and was thus available, and they got together in the basement, along with some catnip and pudding, and […]

‘Stalled Recovery’

That’s the the L.A. Times euphemism for “depression”: Downward revision of GDP growth a strong signal of stalled recovery The Commerce Department on Friday downgraded the nation’s economic growth in the second quarter, providing the most important evidence yet that the recovery has stalled. The anemic annualized growth rate of 1.6% was down from last […]

BLACK WEDNESDAY: Stock Market Disaster of Biblical Proportions!

OK, maybe a tad over-the-top there in the headline. As of 3:30 p.m., the Dow Jones Industrial Average was off about 260 points, but that’s not quite 2.5% of the index value, so it’s too early to expect stockbrokers to start jumping out windows in Lower Manhattan. See if you can’t spot the magic word […]

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