Tim Fernholz

Stan Collender has a must-read post at Nieman Watchdog about how we talk about deficits and debt. It’s a useful corrective to much of the nonsense we’ve heard lately. Read the whole thing, but here’s an excerpt: The bond market is being as unequivocal today as it was when Bob Rubin used what it was […]

Republicans had a fairly valid criticism of the financial-reform debate: Democrats who crafted the Dodd-Frank bill had little or nothing to say about the fate of Government-Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the now-taxpayer-owned mortgage financiers that have cost the country billions because of their crucial role in back-stopping the housing markets, and […]

Matt Bai writes about the Paul Ryan’s budget plan … without writing about Paul Ryan’s budget plan: “He’s not saying the world’s going to be full of butterscotch sundaes,” is how [former Republican Florida Governor] Jeb Bush described the plan to me recently. “He’s saying: ‘Eat your broccoli. And then maybe you don’t get to […]

Yesterday, I wondered if Senate gridlock might be enough to keep the Bush tax cuts from being extended. Now the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ Chuck Marr gives me some reason to worry: Last week, 42 senators voted for a proposal by Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) to permanently extend all of the Bush income […]

The latest effort from David Leonhardt is a disquisition on who the unemployed are — particularly, that the brunt of unemployment has been concentrated on a small “pool of jobless workers” who have stayed without work for some time, even as wages rise for the rest of workers. The data leads to an observation from […]

I was talking with some friends last night about Katherine Miller when someone asked if Barack Obama really opposes gay marriage. Many people assume his public stance is political posturing, but what is he afraid of? Support for gay marriage has been edging upward steadily, and there’s confidence that, as gay-friendly youth make up a […]

I’ve got to disagree with Jamelle: Some key primary elections across the country yesterday can teach us a few lessons about the elections in 2010. While unemployment is the driving factor in voter discontent, the candidates a party puts forward matter. If you disagree, tell me where Harry Reid would be today were he not […]

Katherine Miller was a cadet at West Point, among the top ten in her class. Yesterday, she resigned after coming out as a lesbian, writing that she was “unwilling to suppress an entire portion of my identity any longer because it has taken a significant personal, mental, and social toll on me and detrimentally affected […]

Today, the Federal Open Market Committee, pictured above, will meet to decide what the Federal Reserve Bank will do about the economy, which is looking increasingly less stable — maybe even double-dip unstable. Neil Irwin previews the fun: One substantive option on the table — and which has the highest likelihood of actually being taken, […]