Economics

I've been reading President Obama's helpful guide to the things that sequestration will force the goverment to cut (the link is to the Illinois version) and I've realized that most of the cuts from sequestration fall into two categories:The first category consists of cuts that would be pretty damned awesome:...Illinois will lose about $587,000 in Justice Assistance … [Read more...] about Sequestration — Bring It On

It's easy to make fun of "up-down" financial market reporting, which is why I do it. Every day, some poor fool pretends to understand why thousands of investors made millions of of decisions about billions of dollars and boil it down to a single cause, such as "profit taking," "hunting for bargains," or "declining investor confidence in the wake of yesterday's Treasury … [Read more...] about Obama Wins, Markets Do Something

...and hates American car owners. Over at In These Times, the President of the United Steelworkers International union, Leo Gerard, is praising President Obama for propping up politically connected businesses, although that's not quite how he puts it: President Barack Obama...has given some love to American car companies and American car workers. He also gave them many … [Read more...] about “Obama Loves American Car Workers”

The left has been going wild over Mitt Romney's "47%" comment, and for good reason. What they may not realize is that a fair number of people on the free-market right aren't too happy with it either, because it shows shocking ignorance of how the American economy works. Steve Chapman has a takedown of Mitt Romney today which describes the problem pretty well. The angry folks on … [Read more...] about Romney’s Disturbing Ignorance About the American Economy

For those interested in the numbers, the Mega Millions jackpot stands at $540 million. That's the estimated nominal value of the annuity payout over 25 years (26 payments, the first one is immediate and the rest are at the end of the year). That annunity is calculated based on the current cash prize pool of $389 million. If you won that cash prize, the federal government's … [Read more...] about Mega Millions Breakeven?