As much as economists wish it were otherwise, the key to the economy is consumer and business confidence and everything else is important only to the extent they have a positive or negative impact on confidence.

While he's right on a number of points, Mankiw nonetheless misses the trees for the forest: the correct multiplier to use (for both spending and tax cuts) depends on the specifics of the spending and tax cuts, and in particular, the effect those have on business and consumer confidence. Spending and/or tax cuts that 'stimulate' confidence have positive multipliers. Spending and/or tax cuts that don't stimulate confidence have at best no impact, at worst, they exacerbate the crisis. In other words, the issue is not spending -v- tax cuts or the size of the stimulus package but rather the specifics of what the money is being spent on and the specifics of the tax cuts The reason Obama's stimulus failed was not because it was too small or because it was comprised mostly of spending but rather because the public saw nothing in the package that made them feel optimistic and better about the future... thus businesses didn't hire and consumers didn't spend... and thus, there we got little if anything for the $800 plus billion. To use Mankiw's analogy, the treatment can work only to the extent the patient believes in the treatment.

I'd be surprised if Obama has thought this through. BP would gain nothing from agreeing to a fund. It won't relieve them of liability nor will any politicians give BP 'credit' and turn down the rhetoric. It will also likely increase BP's costs as (I believe) the administrators of this fund would be more generous with BP's money than BP would be. And this is simply an Obama ploy to score political points with the public by moving their attention from what he isn't doing. He isn't having any luck getting the leak stopped nor has he been successful at lessening the environmental and economic impact of the spill.

Per this post, the issue is whether or not they disobeyed orders regarding the treatment of captured terrorists. I don't think the rules should prevent them from punching a terrorist in the mouth (heck, I would allow much more than that) but the guys in the field don't get to set the rules, they know they don't get to set the rules and if they are found to have disobeyed an order then they should be punished - not for punching the guy but for disobeying an order.