Liberal Talk Radio

Podcast listeners know we’ve been harping on inflation lately, arguing that given America’s current budget deficit and liquidity trap, significant inflation is the most inevitable path out of this recession. Paul Krugman, in a column on China’s currency manipulation, agrees: It’s true that if China dumped its U.S. assets the value of the dollar would [...]

You don’t see many people begging to have the world’s Most Dangerous People given a new home in their backyards, but that’s how desperate Michigan has become. In a nutshell, former governor John Engler is suggesting that Michigan offer the Upper Peninsula as a new home for a prison for the suspected terrorists who have [...]

If for no other reason than to focus our sense of outrage on one simple target rather than keep on with this societal splintering: During the campaign, Obama was never shy about his promise to undo the Bush tax policies. But it was easy to ignore his occasional lapses into populist rhetoric and focus on [...]

Oh well. At least we’ll always have Madoff: The only real motivation that anyone at A.I.G.-F.P. now has is fear. Mr. Cuomo has threatened to “name and shame,” and his counterpart in Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal, has made similar threats — even though attorneys general are supposed to stand for due process, to conduct trials in [...]

Ever wonder what it’s like to live in Japan?  Wait no more: Going further than analysts anticipated, the [Fed] cut its target for the overnight federal funds rate to a range of 0 to 0.25 percent, a record low, virtually bringing the United States to the zero-rate policies that Japan used for six years in [...]

Somewhat ironically, the best thing to do in a recession (from a macroeconomic perspective, at least) is spend spend spend. So it’s with that in mind that a friend of mine has started a new Facebook group — Second Christmas (you’ll probably need a Facebook account to access). 2nd Christmas is January 20th, 2009, which [...]

Before the existential threat of Islamic fanaticism took up most of my ire, I was most pissed about ATM fees. Guess what’s back: Citigroup is not the only bank grappling with tremendous losses. Many financial institutions are hiking customer fees at record levels. It may be quick and easy, but that ATM convenience is going [...]

More or less, anyway. Somewhere, his old buddy Ayn Rand is frowning disdainfully.

TBS is playing a rerun of Season 4 of HBO’s Sex and the City. In Episode 64, Carrie has just broken up with Aidan and is looking to buy an apartment. The bank loan officer tells her that despite being New York Magazine’s best columnist or whatever, she’s an undesirable candidate for a loan. The [...]

Ron Suskind’s “telling lessons” illustrate the genesis of the 2003 Dividend Tax Cut and Sarbanes-Oxley, which is to say, the Administration acted quickly to address structural flaws in the financial system: The Federal Reserve chairman and senior economic officials of the Bush administration solemnly filed into the large conference room of the Treasury Department. There [...]