Outside the Beltway

Food prices are rising in China. For us higher food prices mean we get fat a little more slowly; for a poor Chinese family it means starvation stalks a little closer.

The Federal Reserve is injecting $ 600,000,000,000 into the economy, primarily in the hope that it will boost stock prices and, in turn, the economy. It might work, but if it doesn’t the consequences could be severe.

Another round of GDP growth figures are out, and they show that the U.S. economy continues to grow far slower than necessary to sustain job growth. Is this a temporary problem, or something we can expect to live with for the foreseeable future?

Has Uncle Sam got a deal for you: Lend the Treasury money for five years and it will only cost you negative 0.55 percent!

The skyrocketing cost of tuition makes it harder for students to justify getting a liberal arts education rather than training for a high paying job.

Bill Jacobson and Glenn Reynolds seem to be overly amused that Conor Friedersdorf has the title of “senior editor” over at Andrew Sullivan’s blog.

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.

The housing market that existed from the late 1990s until 2007/08 was an historical anomaly, and anyone expecting a return to those days is fooling themselves.

The average federal government employee earns twice as much as the average private sector worker. An outrage? Not so much.

The Democrats are pulling a trick from the Reagan playbook for the fall campaign. They might want to rethink that.

Twenty-five years after retiring as President Reagan’s Budget Director, David Stockman is back with a scathing indictment of Republican fiscal policies over the past four decades.

General Motors, and Barack Obama, are betting the future on a car that may be nothing more than an electric lemon.

The US standard of living is not only growing but its lead over Europe and Japan is growing.

With everyone concerned about the budget deficit, the idea of cutting military spending is finally gaining traction on Capitol Hill.

Will a debate over foreign policy tear apart the GOP ? Probably not.

There are further signs that the economy will remain anemic through the end of 2010, if not longer.

The House GOP Leader is proposing that we get serious about Social Security reform.

A lot stands in the way of returning to pre-collapse employment levels in the USA.

Law schools are artificially raising student grades, sometimes retroactively, to make them more competitive on the job market.

When I started collecting the books, back in early 1977, copies of Action #1 were available for something like $3500.