Let's run the numbers

On Vacation Leaving tomorrow, but we'll be packing tonight. See you all in a week and a half.

Tort Reform You know how Texas passed tort reform of the type that Dubya want's the whole country to have? Want to see how it worked out? Check out this ( Off the Kuff: There's your tort "reform" ) and this ( HoustonChronicle.com - Insurers taken to task over malpractice rates ). On second thought, I'll just summarize it for you. Instead of the insurance companies cutting their insurance rates, they've kept them the same or increased them. And, since the tort reform isn't reducing rates, those commies in the state lege are threatening to legilatively roll back premiums. Seems they're having a Claude Rains moment right now, but I think they may be genuinely shocked that manipulating the market for one interest has unintended consequenses on others. And isn't it wonderful that Dubya wants to bring this to the entire country? AUSTIN -- House lawmakers sent a stern message to insurance companies Thursday: Medical malpractice lawsuit r...

Busy week ahead Cleaning house, doing chores, and working working working so I can take off for vacation the first week of May. Blogging will be sparse, but I'll try to keep up to date. This is just a week on the beach in Florida, so I don't know if I'll do the full-blown travel diary like I did for Ireland.

Bandar deines oil price-election link Let's all remember that this is Prince Bandar speaking. The one who Barbara Bush, Dubya's momma, referred to as Bandar Bush. Presumably he's the favorite son candidate. So, of course he wouldn't interfere with his friend's internal affairs. His friend's the Bush family anyway. This is a good time for me to recommend that everyone reading gets a copy of Craig Unger's book "House of Bush, House of Saud" and Robert Baer's book "Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude". Yahoo! News - Saudi Ambassador Denies Oil-Election Link : WASHINGTON - The Saudi ambassador to the United States on Wednesday denied any linkage between the U.S. presidential election campaign and a Saudi pledge to the Bush administration to push for lower oil prices. There was no 'quid pro quo,' Prince Bandar bin Sultan told reporters after a meeting with national security advi...

Three excellent commentaries Two good columns, and one good editorial in the Washington Post today. Who would have thought they could still get writers who would take a whack at the Bush administration, even when it's desperately needed whacking. First, Richard Cohen. Bicycling to War (washingtonpost.com) : Old joke: A man repeatedly rides a bike across the Mexican-U.S. border. Each time, he's stopped by Customs and the bike is taken apart. Nothing is found. Finally, one day a Customs official offers the man immunity from prosecution if only he will tell what he's smuggling. The man pauses for a second, shrugs and says, 'Bicycles.' I offer you this because I have just finished Bob Woodward's compelling new book, 'Plan of Attack,' and while it contains several gasps per chapter -- more reasons why George Tenet should be fired, more proof that Condi Rice is in over her head and more reasons that Dick Cheney should be medicated -- the stunning dis...

This doesn't comfort me I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that John Ashcroft wasn't interested in terrorism, when there's so many other things to deal with. Like boobies. Boobies everywhere, including in the grand hall of the Justice Department, which he must cover with a blue curtain so nobody can see boobies and become corrupted. But surely boobies didn't take up all of his time. Ashcroft's Efforts on Terrorism Criticized (washingtonpost.com) :The former acting director of the FBI testified yesterday that Attorney General John D. Ashcroft rejected any further briefings on terrorist threats in the weeks before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and did not view combating al Qaeda as 'a top item on his agenda.' Thomas J. Pickard, who ran the FBI for several months before the attacks, also told the commission investigating the terrorist strikes that Ashcroft rejected a plea that summer for an extra $58 million to combat al Qaeda. Pickard testified th...

The Press Conference Good god, what was that? I watched the first 15 minutes of that last night, and then decided the horrible Will Farrell movie that Mrs. Datanerd picked up wasn't so bad after all. Tom Shales has a wonderful writeup in today's post about it. It's a shame that a TV critic has to be the one to tell us the truth about the travesty that was last night's "Press" Conference, but apparently most of the front-page reporters have to be too polite. A columnist doesn't suffer that problem. A Prime Time to Ask The President Questions (washingtonpost.com) : 'When I say something, I mean it,' George W. Bush said decisively near the end of last night's prime-time presidential news conference. Nobody called out, 'When will you say something?' -- the White House press corps is too mannerly for that -- but some reporters, and some viewers, must have been thinking it. One network reporter predicted accurately beforehand tha...

Our Birthday Not mine, but the blog, Let's Run the Numbers, is one year old. I managed to miss it in all of the chaos lately, and I've never been a self-promoting sort. Let me state for the record that no blog that links to me has done so because I asked them to. They've usually done it because I've posted something witty in their comments, or done a search to see who's linking to them, and added one as a reciprocal courtesy. I appreciate it. I've never been one for self-promotion, mainly because I'm not good at it. Anyway, our birthday was April 10, 2003. I can't get the blogger links to go back to those, but here's a link that's close. Uncertainty and Economic Growth .

Sometime's I think we've just forgotten I was having dinner with a friend down the hill this evening, and he was talking about how he found a tax deduction to be totally absurd, but he took advantage of it anyway. The deduct he was talking about was the mortgage interest deduction. This got me aggrevated for a number of reasons. First, he was talking about tax code simplification. That's all well and good, but in the past twenty years, we haven't seen any "simplification" that wasn't in reality a way for the higher-income people to avoid paying more taxes than the lower-income people. My parents didn't get much back from Reagan's tax cuts, and I didn't get much lower taxes from Bush's tax cuts. Secondly, and more specifically, the mortgage interest tax deduction was part of a set of policies that made home ownership possible for the middle class. In a way, it was a form of wealth redistribution, with middle-class people bei...

Thus endeth our favorite Tiki Bar Just down the hill from me is a little tiki bar. They made good American-Chinese food too. I had my last meal, and my last Suffering Bastard (a lethal concoction of rum, rum, and more rum) there tonight. They're shutting down because of improvements in the Beltway and the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. Sometimes the price of progress is too high. Dynamite Mai Tais, Welcoming Owners (washingtonpost.com)

Bush and the environment One of the things Molly Ivins was telling us about before we got Dubya as "The only president we got" was his abysmal record on the environment as governor of Texas. You know, his silly programs that got companies to "voluntarily" comply with environmental restrictions. Well, he got it. Companies that were shutting down anyway "voluntarily" complied. Companies that were still going concerns didn't "volunteer". He's at it again, this time at the national level. With the repeal of the new source review, energy companies are taking advantage of the American people. It's the old "tragedy of the commons" problem. They don't have to bear the cost of their pollution, the citizens downwind of them do. And so the energy companies don't cut their emissions. And they basically stonewalled the Clinton administration, and donated millions to the Bush campaign. Trouble is, a majority of ...

Bush no care about me? That's unpossible! Excellent coverage of a poll in tomorrow's Washington Post. This actually cheers me up, because it makes me think that the American public is finally getting what I've been ranting about. We may actually have hope to beat him with his own stick. Fewer Say Bush Cares About Them (washingtonpost.com) Polls Show President's 'Compassion' Rating Falling Steadily By Dana Milbank and Richard Morin Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, April 4, 2004; Page A01 As he approaches the November election, President Bush has shed a good part of the "compassionate conservative" image he cultivated during the 2000 election, a Washington Post poll has found. Bush came to office three years ago with a message that he was different from traditional Republican conservatives because he was promoting programs for the poor and disadvantaged. But with his presidency dominated by foreign policy issues and such traditio...

Good jobs news This was very good news. I'm claiming that my guess in the 40,000 range was an April Fools joke, or that I dropped the "3" in front of the 40,000. Whatever, it's good. One point does not a trend make, but every trend starts with one point. I just hope that this is the start of an upward trend. Employment Situation Summary : Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 308,000 in March, and the unemployment rate was about unchanged at 5.7 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Payroll job growth was fairly widespread, as construction employment rose sharply and several major service-providing industries also added jobs. One troubling thing is the suspected early release of data. Washington Post has an article ( Early Trades Make Some Suspect Tip ) saying that the bond markets started going nuts at 8:28, 2 minutes before the official release. Two minutes isn't a long time, but these ar...

When Dinner Rolls attack Your (home) economist at work. This is not an April Fool's joke. Mrs. Datanerd got an e-mail from Southern Living. After investigating to make sure it wasn't a hoax or an urban legend, she finally consulted the magazine's website. Here's what she found: U rgent Safety Notice Regarding Ice Box Rolls Recipe in April Issue on Page 154: POTENTIAL FIRE AND SAFETY HAZARD. Click here for more information. Please DO NOT USE the Icebox Rolls recipe that appeared on p. 154 of the April 2004 issue of Southern Living. It has been determined that heating the water and shortening, as described in the original recipe, is dangerous, and may pose a fire and safety hazard. DO NOT USE this recipe. For the corrected recipe, click here . It will also be reprinted in the May 2004 issue. If you have any questions, please call 888-867-4466. Just for your information, the original recipe called for adding shortening to boiling water while still boiling on...

Zell Miller's Press Secretary Defects for Kerry Goddamnit, why have we not thrown that no-good Zell Miller out of the party yet? I mean it, since we don't have enough Democrats anyway to retake the Senate, just throw the faithless bastard out of the party or at least bar him from the party caucuses. Hell, even his flack is leaving him for John Kerry. We're a big tent, we can agree to disagree about many things, but when the SOB starts talking about working to elect a radical Republican, we can and should throw his ass out. (Via Heisod ). Sen. Zell Miller’s spokesman joins Kerry campaign WASHINGTON — Georgia Sen. Zell Miller is working to re-elect President Bush, but his spokesman will soon be working to defeat him. Anthony Coley, press secretary for the only Democratic senator to endorse the president, has signed on as the Southern communications director for challenger John Kerry. Although Coley doesn’t start with the Kerry campaign until mid-April, he r...

I'm on the sidelines apparently But I would like to admonish my home folks in Tennessee (as well as those in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin) to pay attention to the news, real news, not Fox, and pay no attention to those advertisements that will soon sweep over you. Those of us in Virginia, D.C., and Maryland will appreciate it. Molly Ivins-The sideline states AUSTIN, Texas -- Strange peaches. All of us out here in the boonies should be aware this is a truly weird political year. For one thing, nobody has ever seen this much money involved. What can $200 million do in a political race, answered, we presume, by at least $100 million by the Democrats? No one knows. And now brace yourselves for the really bad news. All this money, intensity and advertising is not going to be spread out across 50 states. There are only 1...

Groundhog Day? Kash of the Angry Bear cites this article on his blog, but I think he missed the most important part. The most accurate forcaster lately is calling for a net increase of 40,000 jobs. Consensus is 123,000 increase. We'll see who's more right at 8:30 AM tomorrow, but I'm leaning toward 40,000. I hope I'm proven wrong. The economist who's been most right in recent months is Richard Yamarone at Argus Research, who's taken a somewhat unique approach to forecasting, listening to hundreds of corporate conference calls and CEO speeches, none of which gave him warm, fuzzy feelings about the immediate future of the labor market. There weren't many conference calls in March, and Yamarone says he's hearing corporate decision-makers talking about creating jobs -- but not right away. "All of these corporate chieftains are saying new hiring is in the cards, around the corner, down the road -- but that doesn't mean March," ...

Sorry I've been away Everybody's been doing such a good job of covering the Richard Clarke thing, I haven't thought that I could add much. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so I've not had much to say. I've got a few economic things to say tonight though, so I'm back. And tomorrow the payroll survey releases the March numbers. Let's take a look at that.