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

My favorite new (but not new favorite) blog is Evil Speculator (tagline, “bent on market domination, one nefarious trade at a time”). It posted a fantastic and disturbing chart from Gold-Eagle. The chart is one of the best demonstrations I’ve seen of a concept called the “slope of hope.” The idea is that (in significant [...]

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 [...]

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).

Elliott Wave International asks, “Are stocks really a bargain?” If you believe your eyes, the answer is pretty clear.
P.S. In case you were wondering what the current DJIA dividend yield is (click the link above to see why this is relevant), you can see that here.

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

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking - far too much, actually - about this election. I am not going to blog here about the relative merits of each candidate - anyone undecided between these two extremely different candidates at this point hasn’t been paying attention. In fact, this will probably be my last election-related [...]

Greg Mankiw’s new post on his personal work incentives is required reading for anyone who wants to discuss taxes in this election cycle.
The idea is simple: our tax system uses marginal rates, meaning one rate applies to the first dollar earned and different rates kick in at different thresholds. (That is, unless you’re so economically [...]