No one could have predicted: The Senate’s top Republican on Tuesday called on Republicans to oppose the Democratic Wall Street reform bill because it does not adequately safeguard against the government’s power to bail out massive banks in the future. “If there is one thing Americans agree on when it comes to financial reform, it’s …
Economics
Welfare States
The Fourth Branch recently posted two interesting maps. This one shows, in red, the states that get more than $1.00 back for every dollar they send to the federal government. This one should look familiar: Perhaps Wolf Blitzer could project the first map on one of the Situation Room screens the next time some Southern …
C.R.E.A.M.
Here’s the latest from the party of fiscal responsibility: She was a 25-year-old junior staffer when the Florida Republican Party gave her an American Express card. Over the next 2 ½ years, nearly $1.3 million in charges wound up on Melanie Phister’s AmEx — $40,000 at a London hotel and nearly $20,000 in plane tickets …
Working as Intended
Your latest entry into the “hoocoodanode” files: In late 2005, the booming U.S. housing market seemed to be slowing. The Federal Reserve had begun raising interest rates. Subprime mortgage company shares were falling. Investors began to balk at buying complex mortgage securities. The housing bubble, which had propelled a historic growth in home prices, seemed …
Attack of on the ‘Lucky Duckies’
The actual AP article “Nearly half of US households escape fed income tax” is slightly more informative than the usual RW-shouter suspects would like you to believe. But Jim Newell at Wonkette has the best short-form rebuttal for those emails from the low-information voters among your friends and loved ones: The right — and yes, …
Attack <del>of</del> on the ‘Lucky Duckies’Post + Comments (238)
What is the Point?
Why do we even bother with this nonsense: Almost three years after Citigroup started to teeter, two of the executives who guided the bank into the center of the financial storm offered their regrets on Thursday to a federal committee examining the crisis and came under withering criticism from panel members. Charles O. Prince III, …
A Weird Way To Look at Things
This NY Times piece has me scratching my head: In a major victory for environmental advocates, New York State has ruled that outmoded cooling technology at the Indian Point nuclear power plant kills so many Hudson River fish, and consumes and contaminates so much water, that it violates the federal Clean Water Act. The decision …