Nov
24th
Tue
24th
Begun on October 9, 2008--right after my wife and I completed a 4,000 mile road-trip across the prairie from Chicago to Utah and back, and less than a month before the elections--it presents an on-line scrapbook of news clips, quotations, videos, and photos adapted from news sources, as well as a few observations of my own.
At first, I was mostly interested in seeing whether or not Barack Obama would be elected as our 44th president. Then after he took office, the formulation of an economic recovery plan seemed the single most pressing concern. As time went on, the development of health insurance reform legislation seemed most important.
But beyond these specific questions and issues, I became increasingly concerned with the state of American democracy. The Republican Party, long the carrier of one of of our two great political traditions, seemed to be moving increasingly toward a radical right-wing populism and a new form of "know-nothingism."
Most of the items in this blog can be expanded by clicking on them. The "search" box will create a list every entries that include any particular term. The "archive" below provides a brief calendar of all the items, and thus serves as a kind of "table of contents."
They really make the best effort anyone has ever made. Everything is in here….I can’t think of anything I’d do that they are not doing in the bill. You couldn’t have done better than they are doing.
when it comes to the creation of a government-run alternative to private insurance schemes, the fear is not that big government would be too inefficient but that it would be only too effective at undercutting the market.
A funny thing happened on the way to a new New Deal. A year ago, the only thing we had to fear was fear itself; today, the reigning doctrine in Washington appears to be “Be afraid. Be very afraid.
I mostly don’t blame President Obama; he and his team went as far as they felt they could. I blame the head-in-the-sand politicians in Congress, the over-optimistic forecasters, the half-educated press, and the power of the financial lobby. I blame the avatars of fiscal virtue, the public debt scare-mongerers, the astrologers for whom thirteen significant digits (a trillion) for the stimulus package was just too much. I blame the Senate, which hands the balance of power to small states at the expense of disaster areas like California, Florida and New York. I do blame the Bush-Obama financial policy team, who either believed that “credit would flow again” if you stuffed the banks with money, or knew that it wouldn’t.
Nov
23rd
Mon
23rd
Republican leaders are circulating a resolution listing 10 positions Republican candidates should support to demonstrate that they “espouse conservative principles and public policies” that are in opposition to “Obama’s socialist agenda.” According to the resolution, any Republican candidate who broke with the party on three or more of these issues– in votes cast, public statements made or answering a questionnaire – would be penalized by being denied party funds or the party endorsement.
Midge Hough was heckled by anti-reform crowd members. “You can laugh at me, that’s okay,” she said, crying. “But I lost two people, and I know you think that’s funny, that’s okay.
To what extent should they try to energize their electoral prospects by hitching themselves to the powerful but volatile strain of populism — characterized by anti-elitism and deep skepticism of government — that Ms. Palin has come to embody?
Nov
22nd
Sun
22nd
Based on our knowledge of recent trends and the time it takes to change energy infrastructure, … the Copenhagen conference next month is our last chance to stabilise at 2C in a smooth and organised way
Suddenly the Federal Reserve is everybody’s punching bag.
Making big changes is incredibly hard in this country
