David Corn is twittering some event somewhere, and quotes Matthew Dowd saying this:
If econ. creates 150K jobs a month for the next two years, he loses.
The world is too complicated to make such predictions, but I think the underlying point is one that is lost on people, that "150K jobs a month" is not nearly enough job growth. So, yes, we can cheer monthly jobs reports that are >0 and find signs of hope in jobs reports that are at 150K, but this is still not enough. It has to be better than that for things to get better.
Thanks to all who have contributed so far to help keep this pub operating. I'm oddly bad at thank yous, not because I'm not grateful but because I'm somewhat embarrassed by peoples' generosity. Not sure if that makes any sense, but there it is. But, anyway, thank you!
Most news reports make it seem like judges nixing foreclosures based on crappy or fraudulent paperwork is a relatively isolated thing done by near rogue judges who fail to understand that in 2010 the banksters are the law.
It is not the only case that has big banks worried. Spinner and some of colleagues in the New York City area estimate they are dismissing 20 to 50 percent of foreclosure cases on the basis of sloppy or fraudulent paperwork filed by lenders.
I don't have any problem with such systems to prevent drunk driving, but I still feel like we go about the drunk driving thing completely wrong most of the time. We need to make it easier for people to drink without needing to drive, and make it easier for people who did drive and then drink more than they should to find their way home through some other means. Obviously some of this involves my master plan to move you all to Manhattan, but as that might take a little time there are smaller steps which can be taken. I'm sure many of you are familiar with places that don't allow overnight parking and will ticket and tow. Even in places with decent mass transit, the systems shut down too early. Very small changes to zoning mandates could put that neighborhood bar, now across an 8 lane road with no crosswalk, within reach of that neighborhood.
A big reason people drink and drive is we put bars in the middle of giant parking lots far away from any human habitation. I'm not sure what they expect will happen, but I think the consequences are pretty predictable.
NEWARK, N.J., (AP) — NJ Transit owes the federal government $271 million for the Hudson River rail tunnel that Gov. Chris Christie scrapped last month.
If I only got my information from Chuck Todd's twitter feed that's what I'd think. But he's not even that popular in New Jersey (he's not unpopular, just not particularly popular).
The Quinnipiac University Poll finds Christie's job approval rating at 51 percent, with 38 percent disapproving.
But only 24 percent think he'd be good in the White House, compared to 61 percent who don't think so.
I'm worrying that all of my SUPERTRAIN posts have helped to convince Republicans that opposing rail in any form is on the list of things that piss of liberals.
I've long been a bit confused about the apparent lack of innovation in designing roads and remedies for dealing with accident scenes quickly. Perhaps there isn't much to be done with an overturned trailer, but the time cost of these kinds of backups is absolutely immense.
There are good and rather obvious reasons for having municipal or single contract residential trash collection which I really don't see being outweighed in any way by the free market fairy. There are huge potential externalities to both trash and trash collection. I don't want multiple trash collection days on my street. I don't want to increase the number of trash collection vehicles on my street. They're noisy and they block traffic. I don't want people to fail to pay their trash collection bill and dumb their trash elsewhere. It's also impossible to figure out how service duplication would in any way reduce costs. It's obviously more efficient to have one truck serving a given neighborhood.
In the blogger meeting, Obama said that the best way to help housing problems is to help the economy. That might be true, but the economy isn't being helped, and mortgage delinquencies are increasing. It's time to think of things the executive branch can do that don't require the approval of presidents Snowe and Collins.
Sam posted up the audio from the first Majority Report show, which I was a guest on roughly weekly for as long as the show was on. It's interesting thinking back to just how important Air America seemed at its launch. I was pretty horrible on that first show. Whether I was any good any other time I'll leave for the judgment of others. My advice for people appearing on radio is go into the studio. It's much easier to do a good job than if you're doing it by phone.
I still think more liberal radio would be a good thing, and as Air America was plagued by corrupt and bad management from the start its viability as a business model is still not clear, but I don't think people think the relative lack of liberal radio is as important as they did 6-7 years ago (rightly or wrongly).
Anyway, just reminiscing here. Please consider a modest contribution to this humble blog.
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