And yes, Soullite seems to have bought into the FoxNews definition of "liberal", which is, essentially, "anybody we call a liberal." Obama isn't anywhere near a liberal. There are less than 10 Senators that are liberal - maybe Franken and Sanders, but few others. Pelosi at least knows what a liberal is, but she's hardly a true believer.

I heard Jon Stewart refer to austerity measures the other day as "sensible" and "centrist". We've got a lot of work to do. Austerity measures are anything but sensible. They are a concoction of wealthy, right-wing economists who lie for a living. (And yes, I think continuing to profess belief in an economic theory that has been thoroughly debunked constitutes "lying".)

Well, I'm a day late, but I share your frustration. vrcodger reads like somebody who feels the need to inject "historical context" into every argument. DeLong's talking about how there exist fundamental concepts underlying the physical sciences that are agreed upon by all working scientists, but there is no similar set of core knowledge in economics. vrcodger simply ignores the core idea and sails off into an orgy of contextualism. My personal background is in mathematics. Yes, I know that math has been studied for millenia. And still, modern mathematics has organized itself around the basic concepts of set theory. Yes, Newton, Gauss, Euler, Cauchy, etc., all did incredible work without 20th century set theory. That's not the point. Modern mathematics is organized around set theory. And modern economics appears to be organized around...whatever rich people want to hear. We have a generation of economists driving the world's economy off a cliff and all they can do is collectively mock Keynes and praise Ayn Rand. It's quite frustrating.

" Eric said... -Warming since 16,000 yr BP -Cooling since 10,000 yr BP -Cooling since 2,000 BP -Warming since 100 BP" That's a curious usage of the word "since". If it is cooler today than it was a year ago today, it hasn't been "cooling since a year ago today". I encourage you to return to common usage of the English language. If you are a non-native English speaker, then you should be aware that the combination you claim is logically impossible.

Aliens is good, Terminator is better. I find it hard to compare Titanic to the sci-fi films. Cross-genre comparisons are difficult to do meaningfully. (Which is part of why the 'Best Picture' award is so silly.)

It's a lot easier to drop interest rates from the all-time highs that they were at from 1979-1980. Interest rates are so low today that dropping them further hardly seems like a solution.

"It would have been nice if Newt Gingrich had helped Bill Clinton deal with it back in 1995. It would have been nice if George W. Bush had dealt with it rather than amplified it in 2001. It would be nice if Republicans like Keith Hennessey would help Barack Obama deal with it now..." But playing chicken made for lucrative politics!

In case it's not clear, my response was to "Bob", whose comment had absolutely nothing to do with what I said. Hit-and-run posts asserting intellectual superiority are not very interesting to me. "Bob" knows nothing about me, but presumes that he knows everything about me. He's either a child or a poorly-programmed AI bot.

You're a presumptuous little jerk, aren't you?

Zasloff is attributing a Truman quote to Senator Simon.

Are you saying the solution to too much lower and middle class debt is more gov't debt? Posted by: Too Much Fed | July 12, 2009 at 10:53 PM You're saying it isn't? Let's keep in mind that for every debtor there is a creditor. More gov't debt could mean less lower and middle class debt, right? Let's make this simpler: the government can take on a debt burden to stimulate the economy, and then citizens will be able to tackle their personal debt as a result. Right?

Goldman Sachs is making money hand over fist. Therefore, the economy must be in great shape. QED Here's a serious question: When Goldman Sach pays 99% of the salary of a man like Geithner over a 10 year period, and the US government pays 1%, where do his loyalties lie? [Tim Geithner has *never* worked for an investment bank. He has always worked either for the government or the IMF...]

"She was offended by someone addressing her as "ma'am". This is known as "faux outrage"." "Search the transcripts of house and senate hearings over the years and you'll find thousands of uses of "sir" and "ma'am"." There are thousands of times Senator Boxer has been addressed "sir"? Senator Boxer's point is that she has earned the right to be addressed as "Senator", even if other people are comfortable being addressed as "sir" or "mam". "Boxer made a fool of herself. I suspect this is going to stick - and stick hard - to her for the rest of her life." I see you're an expert at faux outrage.

so, "he made... (38 words)...look foolish" Did you learn sentence structure from a German? (Yes, Froomkin did the job the ombudsman was supposed to do, before Hiatt et al. decided that the function of an ombudsman was to stand up for bad writers and mock readers.) (Oh, he also did a bit of journalism to boot.)

I'm really trying to fathom this...so far I see comments from at least three different people expressing disdain and scorn at the notion of pseudonymous blogging. And all three of these people are doing so under pseudonyms. Glad to see hypocrisy is alive and well. But really, don't you think it's just a bit too ridiculous to be worthwhile when you use a pseudonym to criticize the usage of pseudonyms? Or are you people so self-absorbed that you don't realize that such an argument is manifestly self-defeating and, indeed, makes you look idiotic?

Mankiw _thinks_ he has discovered that Sotomayor cannot manage money. But really, we've discovered (perhaps not for the first time?) that he's an idiot. How many wealthy people put their money into their savings accounts????

This is a problem with the euphemism "enhanced interrogation techniques". Greg Sargent is reporting that the CIA is not attesting firmly to the accuracy of these documents. We need more answers.

"I guess I react to your comments because to some extent it was stuff like them that led to the Reagan/Rush/Bush/Fox/Gingrich revolution." Really? The so-called GOP revolution happened because the mass of people are intrinsically wedded to anti-intellectual beliefs? I'm not buying it. I thought it was all about cutting taxes. I'm tired of hearing how the key to power for Democrats is passive-aggressive behavior.