I’ve noticed that as the primaries heat up, all the Republicans are channeling the sainted Ronald Reagan. In the last debate before the South Carolina vote, Mitt Romney used the famous “shining city on a hill” line, and Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels repeated it in his rebuttal to Obama’s State of the Union address. Somehow, [...]

I watched enough of the debates leading up to Iowa to conclude that the Republican candidates for president seem to live on a different planet than the rest of us, one where the only problem this country has is named Obama. Unemployment at 9 percent? Millions of homes foreclosed? The erosion of the middle class? [...]

Interesting story yesterday about how wide the economic gulf has become between members of Congress and their constituents.  According to the New York Times, the median net worth of the folks in Congress grew 15 percent from 2004 to 2010, while the public saw its net worth drop 8 percent. Senators and representatives have always [...]

I couldn’t resist this one. After seeing ads for expensive new cars with big gift bows on top, diamond necklaces and fancy winter vacations, I started wondering what the average American will be getting from Santa this year. With so many unemployed, so many forced out of their homes, so many desperate, and so much [...]

My kids were fortunate–we managed to get them through college without racking up enormous loans. Many of their friends, though, weren’t so lucky. With the job market stuck in neutral, and the cost of college going through the roof, graduation these days means long-term penury for many, even if they somehow manage to find work [...]

A day after Europe agreed on a bailout plan for Greece, the Greek government, reeling from the unpopularity at home of the deep austerity moves the deal imposes, decided to put the whole thing to a referendum of the voters. The outcome, if the vote is allowed to happen, is pre-ordained, and will throw world [...]

The deficit reduction supercommittee is apparently bogged down in the usual partisan squabbles. Big surprise. The Democrats won’t accept a package of cuts only, and the Republicans balk at any tax increases. Will the threat of the nasty automatic cuts that will happen if there’s no agreement be enough to move anyone off dead center? [...]

I was working my way across the radio dial on my way home the other night, delighted to hear the right-wing blathersphere ablaze with denunciations of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators, a sure sign that they’re starting to have an impact. Oh, those commies, those hippies, those radicals, those anarchists, those evil revolutionaries and their [...]

I’m guessing that the Lords of Wall Street aren’t particularly interested in anything the protesters have to say, unless they have a cool tip on a new way to make obscene amounts of money by spinning off esoteric derivatives, insider trading, or taking the economy to the brink and getting billions in bailout money, all [...]

You’ve got to love the thinking here. Obama proposes a hefty $450 billion jobs bill, containing many items that Republicans used to favor. The tab is to be paid by raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans to their pre-Bush tax cut levels. The Republicans (surprise) oppose asking the rich to pay for the jobs the [...]