Recently in Economy Category

A few of you may be well aware that I am a Pink Floyd enthusiast. In particular, I love to study up on Syd Barrett, but he was simply a passing inspiration for the tune "Comfortably Numb." The concept was simple enough. When we face stressers in life we often get to a point where simply surrender. No, that doesn't mean giving up or worse. It simply means taking a mental break. Yesterday, I found...

Shared sacrifice, Republican style:Arizona: "Governor Jan Brewer is proposing to kick some 280,000 Arizonans, mostly childless adults, off the state's Medicaid rolls. Brewer claims such a move is the only way to get the state's fiscal house in order, as it would save $541.5 million in general funding spending. Brewer also wants to save $79.8 million by dropping 5,200 "seriously mentally ill" people from the state's Medicaid program. Instead of balancing out these draconian cuts...

This Op-Ed, by Charles M. Blow, documents the United States decline in a number of measures.  Not only are we no longer "Number One", in many measures we are among the worst of the worst of industrialized countries.American Shame.html...

Speaking of 'just do it': "The bipartisan panel appointed by Congress to investigate the financial crisis has concluded that several financial industry figures appear to have broken the law and has referred multiple cases to state or federal authorities for potential prosecution, according to two sources directly involved in the deliberations. The sources, who spoke on condition they not be named, declined to identify the people implicated or the names of their institutions. But they...

With a national audience tuned in, tonight would be as good a time as any for President Obama to draw some lines in the sand and make some clear distinctions between his vision for the future and that of his opposition. The fact that the Republican response to the president's State of the Union message will be given by Paul Ryan the Social Security and Medicare slasher and privatizer makes it an even more opportune...

Shocking, huh?"The Senate's top Republican, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said on Sunday that his party will vigorously oppose the spending initiatives President Obama plans to include in his State of the Union address on Tuesday because "it's not a time to be looking at pumping up government spending." ...Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Mr. McConnell countered that "The American public, as one pundit put it, issued a massive restraining order," against government spending and excessive...

While I was waiting for the Jets-Patriots game to come on last Sunday, I ran across a documentary on the History Channel called "The Crumbling of America." It was all about the rapidly deteriorating state of roads, bridges, sewer and water systems, and the electrical grid, all across the country. A short clip:<br />A brief synopsis from a Georgia Tech aerospace engineer:"America's infrastructure is collapsing. Tens of thousands of bridges are structurally deficient or functionally...

The New York Times has reported a Wikileaks disclosure that the U.S. Government is very active abroad in brokering deals to sell U.S. made civilian aircraft.(Above---The Boeing 377 Stratocruiser. What is good for Boeing is good for America.)From the Times--"The king of Saudi Arabia wanted the United States to outfit his personal jet with the same high-tech devices as Air Force One. The president of Turkey wanted the Obama administration to let a Turkish astronaut sit in on a NASA...

A few odds and ends on a gray Wednesday morning:Since the new Republican majority in the House is going to start today with a dog and pony show reading of the Constitution, maybe they could have Justice Scalia stop by and explain why he thinks the First Amendment right to free speech applies to corporations but the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth doesn't apply to women. Could be interesting.To whom it may concern at...

TPM Live Wire has the details:"You know the story and you know the names: states like Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and California are supposed to be in huge financial trouble thanks to bloated governments, business-unfriendly regulations, and strong public sector unions. ...But there's one state, which is fairly high up on the list of troubled states that nobody is talking about, and there's a reason for it.The state is Texas.This month the state's part-time...