I’ve written before that one of the defining characteristics of liberals is that they take the role of luck in our lives seriously. Even with hard work, some people experience bad luck or bad timing. With an equivalent amount of hard work, some people just catch some breaks. Check out this post in which three […]
John Podesta is a co-chairman of Barack Obama’s transition team and the president and chief executive officer of the Center for American Progress, one of liberalism’s most effective organizations. He also has written a great book outlining liberalism/progressivism itself – The Power of Progress. I’m about half way through it. I’ve read a lot of […]
Dean Baker has a great piece over at TPMCafe connecting the (so far nonexistent) auto industry bailout to the economies of the Great Lakes States. He only mentions Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana, but Illinois, Wisconsin, etc. are not immune.
And I don’t mean the famous political strategy of Kevin Phillips. No, I’m talking about overseas automakers. One reason Detroit’s automakers have had such trouble with their bailout is they have an opposing constituency among southern politicians. It’s something the Wall Street Journal wrote about today. Overseas automakers have mostly invested in southern states, largely […]
Just a quick note about the election, now that Missouri’s vote has come in, and we have the entire electoral map in place… I’m a much bigger fan of maps that show the true purpleness of the country (scroll down to the bottom). But at the electoral college level, it’s still great to see what […]
Yesterday, I said: By the way, I’d also like to see us fold all of the money we spend on the military protecting our Middle East “interests” – that is, oil supplies – into the gas tax. That’s pure rational accounting, baby. But that’s a different post. Well, this post still isn’t about what the […]
Following up on my previous post regarding the possibility of a Detroit bailout, here are a few interesting links I’ve run across. First, on the UAW. In my post I mentioned that yes, indeed, Detroit’s labor costs are higher. Here’s another way to look at it from Felix Salmon: You might expect it from right-leaning […]
One reason I didn’t post for a long while was I was trying to follow all of the economic news and punditry as the economy melted down and cries of socialism came from the campaign. I felt it was a perfect time to hear people talking fervently about liberal versus conservative economics. I still have […]
Ah, Detroit’s automakers. I almost called this post “The Big Three,” but I stopped calling them that years ago. I covered the U.S. auto industry for several years while I worked at the public radio station in Ann Arbor, Mich. Initially, I felt I had to come up with a different moniker because Chrysler became […]
I know it’s been a couple of weeks since the election, and I’m not sure there’s much I could add to what has been said about it already. So, just a few thoughts. This is the first presidential election in which I felt that my guy won. Obviously Barack Obama is an impressive speaker, but […]
Bill Poorman 