Tim Fernholz

Not actually that spooky, we’re just in the spirit of the season. Look below for free trade, military public affairs, corporate taxes, and, of course, a stimulus package. Globalization behooves multilateralism. In a Carnegie Endowment trade policy paper, Margaret Lay warns of the possible clash between environmental policies and trade agreements in the post-Kyoto future. […]

Ol’ DB writes today: My sense is that this financial crisis is going to amount to a coming-out party for behavioral economists and others who are bringing sophisticated psychology to the realm of public policy. At least these folks have plausible explanations for why so many people could have been so gigantically wrong about the […]

If you’ll recall, the Kurds, those country-less, independent ethnic freedom fighters of northern Iraq (and several other countries) were always tacit U.S. allies. They were the main beneficiaries of the pre-OIF no-fly zone and had their reputations deployed whenever people made the case for the war. Now that we’re in charge in Iraq, the Kurds […]

So I read Mark Levin’s post about the “recklessness and abandonment of rationality” that has led to the likelihood of an Obama victory. Levin’s description of the state of the race and Obama himself is at odds with what is actually happening out in the world. Consider this statement: “Unlike past Democrat presidential candidates, Obama […]

Jason Zengerle, stop. Just stop. Now the argument that New Hampshire will go for McCain is that … Obama under-performed the polls during a volatile primary election. I’d note that poll Zengerle references was taken on the two days before Hillary Clinton had her famous teary-eyed moment in Portsmouth, which many observers see as the […]

Yesterday, Ambers offered John McCain’s closing argument. It’s mostly pablum, but part stuck out at me: The GOP nominee plans to “manage the two wars.” Not, you’ll note, “win” them or “end” them. We’ve lost sight of it amid the financial crisis, but McCain has never had a plan to win either war short of […]

Another day, another campaign conference call. Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, along with top field aides Jen O’Malley and Jon Carson tell the press corps what’s up. This mainly consisted of emphasizing that they expect to polls to tighten in the next 11 days, a tone struck no doubt to dampen any emerging McCain comeback […]

Adam Nagourney gamely presents the McCain plan to win, and I’m not too impressed. The game isn’t over yet, despite what some pundits will say, but the Republican nominee’s plan to bet it all on Pennsylvania and hope something good happens in Ohio and Florida is a long-shot. But what struck me was Nagourney’s discussion […]

One of the latest impacts of our financial crisis is that banks are calling in their loans to big transportation systems. D.C.’s struggling metro system owes $400 million, and 29 other transportation agencies across the country owe billions together. Just another way that the damage to our global financial infrastructure affects you, the hard-working citizen. […]