Is it really Good News that changes in Real Private Inventories were 3.4% of that 5.7% Q-on-Q GDP in Q4? (h/t Alea's Twitter feed)

Most reasonable assumption: firms overproduced, relative to actual buying, in anticipation of the Xmas season.

Maybe more later.

John Scalzi makes a clear case that Amazon's determination to subsidize the Kindle is coming at the expense of Authors's and their Publishers:

This asinine jockeying over electronic book prices has very little to do with what’s actually good or useful for anyone other than the manufacturer of a piec… Read full post »

Robert Waldmann

The Congressional Budget Office is different from you and me. Their forecasts are authoratative -- literally. The rules of the House and the Senate refer to CBO estimates and forecasts not some debatable underlying reality.

Hence this slightly edited dialog

Sen. Max Baucus, Chairman: […

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The Washington Post carries the full transcript. Worth the read and even watching.

Update: Here is the C-SPAN coverage.(h/t MG) This is very good.
President Speaks at GOP Retreat

President Obama - Full Q&A with Republican Members of Congress

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Robert Waldmann is back

I didn't mean to stop blogging for so long. I apologize. I also apologize for this post which is one of my occasional screeds against welfare reform. Oddly there seems to be almost a consensus that welfare reform was a good policy. I…

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by Maggie Mahar
crossposted with Health Beat

Who Voted for Brown in Massachusetts — and Why?

The media continues to report that the Massachusetts vote was a referendum on health care reform — and that this has the White House worried. If so, the White House is…

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by Linda Beale


Job creation--tax cuts are not the right tool

Not unexpectedly, the "think tanks" that claim to be nonpartisan but that conduct research sponsored by corporate interests and support "capital market" solutions to economic problems are at it again pushing more tax breaks for the huge…

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by Linda Beale

Obama's State of the Union Tax Proposals

President Obama delivered his first State of the Union speech tonight, assuring us that we could jump-start job creation through tax cuts for businesses and gain needed relief for families through tax cuts for middle-class households.

…

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by Bruce Webb

Geekery below the fold.

Steve Jobs was a little hyperbolic in his language yesterday which led some people to laugh. Well there are reasons he is a self-made billionaire and you are not.

The key to understanding why the iPad and similar devices can change the world it to understand that…

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Go read:

1. If you're only reading one post, see FT Alphaville, which incorporates and expands upon...
   
2. Tom Adams and Yves Smith's posting at Naked Capitalism discussing the document and the reality of the situtation.
   
3. the document itself is available from either The Long Room or the Huffington Post.

If the F…

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by Rebecca Wilder

At least that is the way I read today’s monetary policy release. According to the statement released today: “The Bank of Japan will encourage the uncollateralized overnight call rate to remain at around 0.1 percent.†However, the statement curiously omits the following from i…

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by Daniel J Becker (DOLB for the rest of you)

UPDATED BELOW.
Well, I thought being tonight is the big night for the President I would give my version of the SOU. This is an update on the flower shop. For any new readers, these are real numbers from…

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UPDATE: datacharmer at Bluematter thinks visually.

Bruce, yesterday:

Unless you have had the experience of using an advanced smartphone it is hard to explain how transforming it is to have the Internet in your pocket, if I have a question about anything it is mostly as close as my left pocket. But like… Read full post »

CBO:

At 9.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), that deficit would be slightly smaller than the shortfall of 9.9 percent of GDP ($1.4 trillion) posted in 2009. [emphasis mine]

A 7.1% decline in real GDP terms isn't just "slightly smaller"; it's a real improvement that is greater than any (mythical… Read full post »

by ilsm

The US deficit, and its related total debt, are awesome worries.

Military outlays need to be reviewed, by qualified analysts who have not bought into the climate of continuing to clothe the emperor in nothing. Those outlays that are not "worth the expenditure of…

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Bruce Bartlett:

The Fed has talked openly about new procedures to soak up the bank reserves it has created even as those reserves remain largely idle and unlent.

You don't get inflation if there is no money multiplier in play. So long as the banks are just holding the cash, worries about monetary/…

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by cactus
How To Bail Out the Economy - A Less Wrong Way Posted 11/27/2008.

Regular readers know I've had post after post explaining why a bail-out would be a bad idea and would not work, dating to long before the bail-out began. I predicted that the end result would…

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by Bruce Webb

I'm serious. But out of mercy towards those who want to reach for sharp objects every time they see a Mac/PC ad, whether that be to hurt themselves or others, I'll take this below the fold. Because you don't HAVE to slow down to see that car crash.

For those…

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Via David Wessel's Twitter feed, the WSJ publishes a letter:

Ben Bernanke is a good person, a fine academic and a well-respected professor. But those traits have no bearing on whether he should be reconfirmed as Federal Reserve chairman....

Applying accountability principles, there's no way Chairman… Read full post »

by Tom Bozzo

Update: See Brad DeLong. The exercise may even have been carefully conceived to do little harm, or perhaps little good if you're an anti-deficit crazy. But even if this is not as bad on the substance as it could be, the engagement of the administration in the…

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The world would be a much better place if people had listened to Tom last August:

Now some elite opinion favors Ben Bernanke's reappointment, but politicians are irritated over Fed stonewalling of bailout oversight and others (e.g. Dean Baker) point out that Ben Bernanke who put the Fed throttles to t… Read full post »

by cactus

Is China a Bubble?

A friend of mine who does just about all of his business providing a very specific service to selling to companies who do business with China. (And yes, that is as specific as I am willing to be, except to say that…

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by Tom Bozzo

Shorter [1] Jim Hamilton (via [2] Brad DeLong):

Ben Bernanke's record leaves nine links' worth of things to be desired, but considering the zombie ex-Fed Chair alternatives (plus Brett Fav-Paul Volcker), he deserves to be confirmed for a second term.

I am almost not kidding. Here's what Ha…

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