A number of people have asked me lately what I’m reading on economics and the financial markets right now.  Truth is, I’m always reading such things, and no short list can even come close to covering the variety of material I try to read, from the scholarly and serious (e.g., Posner, Becker, Mankiw, etc.) to [...]

So, America has elected its next President, its next Vice President, 35 Senators, 435 members of the House of Representatives, and thousands of state and local officers. We did it, again, without violence or bloodshed, with a minimum of intimidation, with a minimum of fraud, and, in general, with great dignity. There can be no [...]

I have one request of Americans this week: Please, don’t immanentize the Eschaton.

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 [...]

I offer a final thought for the evening. Last night, a dear friend and I were discussing the state of the world and the nation, particularly with reference to some of the more extreme economic proposals made by politicians and pundits of varying degrees of skill. My friend is one of the most intelligent, well-educated, [...]

I thought Sarah Palin’s speech last night was fantastic. I think most of the complaints about it are ridiculous, especially that she didn’t write the entire thing herself, that she talked too much about her experience and Senator Obama’s, or that she’s not really representing women because she’s not pro-abortion rights. Those things said, I [...]

Given that Senator Biden has already said that Senator Obama is not ready to lead and that Senator McCain is, I found the following hilarious: Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, must have known it was coming, but he still sought divine intercession before tackling the question. When a member of the [...]

Says it all, really: First of all, I think this kind of thing is entirely fair game. Secondly, it’s hilarious. Thirdly, ouch. What better way to make the point that, in fact, a man who has spent more time running for President than not since his election to the Senate is not qualified to win? [...]

So much for the build-up to The Announcement of The Pick. So…that Text Message came at 2:22am CDT | Jeff Emanuel online. Favorite line: The promised Text Message from Barack, which was purported to be a way of having supporters be “the first to know” who he was “introducing to the world” as the campaign’s [...]