Economy & Jobs

From Harold Meyerson's review of two books on Wal-Mart:

Dean Baker, one of my favorite economists, goes a bit too far in critiquing a column by Robert Samuelson when he tries to exonerate Wall St. for the financial crisis, blaming the amorphous "housing bubble" instead:

Who knew? From Bloomberg:

June 8 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. economy probably will emerge from the recession by September, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said.

"I would not be surprised if the official end of the U.S. recession ends up being, in retrospect, dated sometime this summer," he said in a lecture today at the London School of Economics. "Things seem to be getting worse more slowly. There’s some reason to think that we’re stabilizing."

Robert Reich has a problem with manufacturing. At least he does when it's practiced in the U.S. For some reason, he thinks that actually making things has gone the way of the horse buggy and 45rpm record player.

It's not a new argument. We heard it all the time during the Clinton Administration. The problem is, the people promoting it could never come up with an alternative that wasn't some form of temporary bubble.

Conservative historian Niall Ferguson looks at the growing cry to (re-)regulate financial markets and for some reason only thinks of the Seventies:

My concern is that we're going to get the 1970s for fear of the 1930s.

Naturally he's cherry-picking here. In fact, the same regulations also operated in the Fifties and Sixties -- or in other words, the greatest period of economic expansion the country ever knew.

The Obama Administration seems entranced in the 'Bob Rubin' mode at the moment. I hope it's only a short-term affliction.

If not, we're going to end up with the same monopolies at the end of 4/8 years that we had at the beginning. Then when (God forbid) the GOP gets back in power (sh*t happens), the spigot gets turned back on full blast.

Forbes puts out a report saying billionaires are worse off this year than last and every media outlet in the country reports this as news.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former CBO Director (2003-2005) and spokesman most recently for John McCain on economic matters, has been making the rounds giving his opinion on various Obama initiatives. Here he is on NPR this morning passing judgment on Obama's budget.

I'm not sure why they consider him an authority. Here's what he had to say about all the fake numbers that used to come out of the Bush Administration:

Best news I've heard all month. Clyde Prestowitz on this evening's Newshour with Jim Lehrer:

We're in a crisis right now. And it's painful, and it's going to get more painful. But the good news is that, at least for the United States, we're going to have a manufacturing renaissance.