Rick Santorum’s good day in Iowa doesn’t change the truth about his campaign.

The popular program was even less successful than we initially thought.

Thank goodness, the July PCE numbers look pretty good compared to recent months. Lets hope it is something that will continue.

Updates to the Gross Domestic Product numbers for quarter two aren’t good, but they could have been worse. Still, the risk of recession is considerable.

The signs are not good.

Will the Fed announce another round of Quantitative Easing?

Don’t worry be happy!

Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff says we’re undergoing much more than a mere recession.

Following on Doug’s cheery post about the weak state of the economy here are some more things to consider.

Christine Lagarde believes the impact could be large and global.

More slow economic growth, the L-shaped recession.

What was that, a joke about shovel ready jobs not being so shovel ready. Yeah unemployment a topic ripe for great comedy.

Illinois is so hard up for revenues it is considering selling ad space on license plates.

We might be looking at a potential fiscal crisis.

Is it possible to address the U.S. fiscal situation?

And even more bad news.

All in all, not looking like it will be a fun summer.

People and businesses are sitting on cash out of fear, creating a vicious cycle.

Former Secretary of State under President Bill Clinton Warren Christopher has died

A Florida courthouse illegally saved 35,000 images from security scanners.

Here’s my plan for creating a budget surplus of $126 billion by 2015 and $592 billion by 2030.

Krugman links to a story at Think Progress about how firefighters let a house burn down because the owner didn’t pay the fee. Paul, baby, next time do a bit of fact checking. This isn’t the market failing, it was a government run fire department. You can tell from this part of the Think Progress [...]

Banks are faced with a huge number of foreclosures and that resources they’ve allocated towards handling them was woefully inadequate.

Well so much for the predictions of “robust growth”. Roots of evil (wonkish) As Brad DeLong says, sigh. Greg Mankiw challenges the administration’s prediction of relatively fast growth a few years from now on the basis that real GDP may have a unit root — that is, there’s no tendency for bad years to be [...]

Great news, everybody: The biggest economic calamity since the Great Depression has been over for well over a year.

The CBO sees a clear threat of a fiscal crisis during the next two decades unless we’re saved by magic ponies.

According to Paul Krugman’s latest column, the massive destruction of World War Two was actually good for the U.S. economy. Sadly, there are people who consider him an expert.

Paul Krugman’s Medicare projections don’t line up with what the actuaries are telling us.

Most research shows that unemployment benefits/insurance increases the duration of unemployment.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is reporting that the CPI declined 0.1% last month. This makes for the third straight month that the CPI has declined. Is there reason to think that there is widespread deflation in the economy?

Nobody can really say whether the stimulus worked — or even define “worked” — but that doesn’t stop them from issuing pronouncements.

President Obama was shocked –SHOCKED! — to learn that bureaucracy and contracting hassles delay construction projects.

Some cops apparently still haven’t figured out that it’s legal to take pictures in public places — even of cops.

Age-adjusted unemployment is at its worst in more than a quarter century

There are a whole lot of reasons to be concerned about the economy.

Gene Healy has a good article that describes how parentalism among pundits on both the Left and the Right. Here are some good snippets, But the adults among us ought to worry about a political culture that reacts to every difficulty by screaming “Save us, Superpresident!” It’s “taking so doggone long,” Sarah Palin wailed, for [...]

The CBO has provided an estimate of the impact of the stimulus bill on GDP and unemployment. Raised the level of real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) by between 1.7 percent and 4.2 percent, Lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percentage points and 1.5 percentage points, Increased the number of people employed by between [...]

Private pays share of personal income has shrunk to its lowest historical level. Private wages. A record-low 41.9% of the nation’s personal income came from private wages and salaries in the first quarter, down from 44.6% when the recession began in December 2007. The article also points out that the trend is not sustainable. The [...]

Columbia MO SWAT raids a residential house. They find a pipe with residue, a small amount of marijuana (enough for misdemeanor offense) and a grinder. In the process of conducting this raid these brave and fearless cops shot and killed a (possibly crated) pit bull dog, and shot and wounded a welsh corgi. These highly [...]

Two prominent Republican Congressmen have come out against reading Miranda rights to American citizens suspected of terrorism. Congressional Republicans want to know whether the Pakistani-born American arrested in the Times Square car bombing plot was read his Miranda rights, with Sen. John McCain saying it would be a “serious mistake” if the suspect was reminded [...]

One of the aspects of Senator Dodd’s proposed reforms is the “Orderly Liquidation Fund”. This fund is to be targetted to be $50 billion dollars and will be pre-funded out of bank profits. The target size of the Fund shall be $50 billion, adjusted on a periodic basis for inflation. The FDIC shall impose assessments [...]

It is unsurprising given the melt down in the financial sector that politicians are looking at “reforming” financial regulations. To most people the general idea of regulatory reform should be to prevent conditions form coming about that lead to the meltdown and thereby prevent further bailouts. Problem is it is looking like the reform in [...]

A recent survey of members of the National Association of Business economists shows that 73% do not think the stimulus help employment. NABE conducted the study by polling 68 of its members who work in economic roles at private-sector firms. About 73% of those surveyed said employment at their company is neither higher nor lower [...]

This article in the NY Times is interesting in that it shows that for all the chatter about how big business cannot be trusted, neither can government. For those of you who haven’t been paying attention to California, New York or other states suffering serious budget issues, there are indeed some amazing parallels between what [...]

Felix Ortiz, D-Brooklyn, wants to ban the use of salt in restaurants. “No owner or operator of a restaurant in this state shall use salt in any form in the preparation of any food for consumption by customers of such restaurant, including food prepared to be consumed on the premises of such restaurant or off [...]

Yes, you read the title correctly. Here is the story with excerpts below, Residents were alarmed last summer by a rash of thefts, trespasses and burglaries in Stonegate, a neighborhood in Douglas County. Fear turned to panic in July after an intruder reportedly climbed into a second- story window and groped an 8-year-old girl in [...]

People filing for unemployment insurance for the first time surged to 473,000 compared to the expectations of 430,000. On top of that the Producer Price Index (PPI) rose 1.4% which is considerable faster than the 0.4% that was expected. The jobless claims numbers underscores the weakness in the jobs market. Unemployment/employment typically are lagging indicators [...]

After following, rather closely, the Duke “Rape” case I can’t say I find this new surprising. Durham, N.C. — Durham police late Wednesday arrested the woman who four years ago falsely accused three Duke University lacrosse players of rape. Investigators said Crystal Gayle Mangum assaulted her boyfriend, set his clothes on fire in a bathtub [...]

No, I’m not kidding. Accused campus killer Amy Bishop was a devotee of Dungeons & Dragons – just like Michael “Mucko” McDermott, the lone gunman behind the devastating workplace killings at Edgewater Technology in Wakefield in 2000. Bishop, now a University of Alabama professor, and her husband James Anderson met and fell in love in [...]

Here is a public service announcement to all police departments, when you find guys like this in your ranks it is probably a better idea to kick them from your ranks and throw the book at them, legally speaking. Protecting them just gets their stink on you. FAIRMONT — A Marion County sheriff’s deputy accused [...]