Ezra Klein

From The American Prospect‘s poverty report: In 2005, the top 20 percent of American households had 50.4 percent of the nation’s income, while the bottom 20 percent had 3.4 percent — the largest margin between top and bottom since this data series began, in 1967. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that between […]

• It’s no fault of The Sopranos, which was cast and filmed ages ago, but I can’t have been the only one creeped out by Junior’s psychopathic, lonesome, young Asian friend. Bad timing. • Oh, Entourage. You’re so back. That said, the trope that sexual tension will be cleared by a sexual encounter has never […]

By Neil the Ethical Werewolf I’m not at the Nicholas Beaudrot level of colorfully represented political data yet, but here’s my table showing Rasmussen’s current head-to head polling data between top Republicans and Democrats. Republican leads are in red; Democratic leads are in blue. Dates of polling are in parentheses. John Edwards Hillary Clinton Barack […]

(Posted by John.) Dean Baker, about the NYT: It is incredible that our country’s preeminent newspaper doesn’thave any idea how large the world’s second biggest economy is… In fact, if China sustains a 10percent growth rate, it will pass the U.S. as the world’s largesteconomy some time in 2010. Measurements of PPP are very imprecise, […]

(Posted by John.) Brief interview in the Boston Globe: And what’s the most important new technology auto buyers don’t know about yet? Plug-in hybrids. They’re being touted as the wave of the future, andI think they are. I can imagine a scene in the not too distant futurewhen a wife will turn to her husband […]

by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math Contra Kevin Drum, cable news’ tendency to flit from this week’s outrage to next week’s local-story-taken-national isn’t a necessarily a function of the presence of 24-hour networks. Certainly the relatively low cost of covering “conterversies” and the multi-day-draw of stories like the West Virginia mining accidents has appeal to […]

By Neil the Ethical Werewolf The first time I heard the John Edwards haircut story, my reaction didn’t differ that much from Ezra’s. Why did the campaign expose itself to this kind of bad publicity? But as this article — linked in Hilzoy’s typically excellent post — describes, there’s a good reason for the haircuts […]

[litbrit wonders why this isn’t front-page news…yet.] I’ve been following the pet food poisoning story for a while, and with the advent of last week’s revelation that not only wheat gluten, but also corn gluten and rice protein concentrate–all imported from China, all used in pet food, animal feed, and human food–had tested positive for […]

by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math John Edwards … is good! Well, now I’m convinced. The Internet has changed the world in ways we could not have imagined ten years ago.