Ezra Klein

Some liberals I know have begun casually referring to the current recession as a Depression. The new issue of The American Prospect — which you’d soon have if you were a subscriber — features a book review by Harvard historian Lizabeth Cohen that offhandedly references “the deepening depression.” The current crisis is bad. But it’s […]

From John McCain’s twitter feed: If we hadn’t bailed out AIG = no bonuses for greedy execs Also, the economy would have collapsed and millions would have been condemned to poverty and joblessness. Indeed, it’s entirely possible that the resulting immiseration would have empowered radical redistributionists and we’d have actually executed the AIG Board of […]

Tyler Cowen asks whether influential people develop conventional opinions. I think the question is a bit confused: Conventional opinions are, in practice, the opinions held by a majority of “influential people.” If that were not true, then it’s hard to see under what definition those people are influential. What are they influencing? Maybe a better […]

I’ve not really known what to say about Avigdor Lieberman’s ascension to Foreign Minister of Israel so I’ve not said anything at all. But I basically agree with Spencer’s analysis: It’s hard to imagine there’s anyone in Israel, including Benjamin Netanyahu, who honestly believes that Lieberman is capable of advancing Israel’s interests abroad. Instead, he’ll […]

In the day’s most unquestionably exciting news, the Tax Policy Center has released its distributional analysis of the tax changes in Obama’s budget proposal. Yippee!

In his profile of Larry Summers today — and then again on his blog — Noam Scheiber says that “our political system isn’t ideally suited to dealing with financial and economic crises.” The example he gives is the 1995 bailout of Mexico, which might not have happened had the Clinton administration not found a way […]

If by “all,” you mean nationalization. But still: It’s a good guide for the perplexed, and these days, we’re all a bit perplexed. Kevin, incidentally, seems to buy into the theory that the stress tests are meant to expose the utter insolvency of the system and give the administration an excuse to nationalize. I’m not […]

I’m not precisely sure what the news is in this Politico piece arguing that the White House means to align its messaging capabilities and grassroots advocates in service of the President’s agenda. They’ve got a petition seems strangely lame given the hubbub. But as I was on MSNBC this weekend to talk about it and […]

Karen Tumulty has written a very good article on the politics of the Wyden-Bennett plan that’s framed very strangely. She gets the central problem exactly right: Wyden-Bennett is better policy and worse politics than the likely alternative. It scraps the employer-based market and constructs something better and more rational in its place. But it scraps […]