When the Bank of England does anything for the first time – it’s 315 years old this year, after all – it’s worth noting.

I am glad to live in Texas, and glad I do not live in New York.

Wow, look at it go.
For reference: this is only 8 days after the $7.4 trillion estimate and only 14 days after the $4.284 trillion estimate. That’s $4,216,000,000,000 in two weeks.
If you really want a fright, keep reading. If we were to keep spending at this rate through the first 100 days of the Obama presidency [...]

In case you’ve already resumed sleeping normally after my prior post on the EMP threat, the Wall Street Journal has more to remind you of the danger.

That’s what the Fed is pledging to “rescue the financial system,” according to Bloomberg.com. That’s 50% of 2007 GDP, or 288% of 2007 federal tax revenues. Makes my prior post sound look like a praise of good budgeting.

That’s what the so-called “financial crisis” of 2008 has cost the federal government directly… so far.* Wonder how that stacks up to other crises? CNBC has a slideshow showing the costs (inflation-adjusted) of some of the biggest government projects ever.
There are many events not listed in that slide show, of course. Two of the most [...]

It’s the best one-image summary of why the Detroit Three are in such hot water, and it’s on Michigan economist Mark Perry’s blog.
(h/t Greg Mankiw).

“Indeed you can usually tell when the concepts of democracy and citizenship are weakening. There is an increase in the role of charity and in the worship of volunteerism. These represent the élite citizen’s imitation of noblesse oblige; that is, of pretending to be aristocrats or oligarchs, as opposed to being citizens.”
- John Ralston Saul

The National Review features a fantastic piece by Alexander Benard and Anthony Dick on America’s True Genius. The thesis: change does not make a nation great, and it certainly is not what has made America great. Rather, it is the constitutionally-mandated stability of our system of laws – the difficulty of implementing radical change – [...]

Let’s all hope this, at least, does not repeat. It’s a miracle the American Dream has survived this long.