In the heat of the debate about the need to fundamentally reform the way financial markets operate, both here in America and abroad, one crucially important point risks getting lost: the stakes for the middle class.

Too often, debates like these end up with the regulators on...

So I'm driving along a Pennsylvania highway two weeks ago on my summer vacation, radio blasting, and what do I see but one of those Recovery Act signs, touting a highway project. Jeez, I thought. Can't a guy get away from that stuff for a couple of days!?

Don't worry....

Even before we got to the White House, the President, the Vice President, and the economic team were crafting policies designed to offset the deepest recession since the Great Depression. Back in mid-December of last year, I remember a meeting in Chicago, with the snow swirling outside, as we began...

Most Congressional hearings are not that scintillating. The ones you see on TV, with Roger Clemens testifying about steroids, Ben Bernanke, or some general back from the field, are the exceptions (and let's face it: they're pretty predictable too, with important people working hard to not say anything important). Mostly,...

You have to dig awfully deep to find something good to say about the economic turmoil swirling around us. These are painful times, and as is often the case, the many are paying the price for the recklessness of the few.

Yet if we play our cards right, some deeply...

If your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. That's what came to mind this AM when I read that John McCain's plan to address the ailing economy includes a big cut in the capital gains tax rate, from 15% to 7.5% for the next two years.

One way to view the current economic crisis is as a pervasive failure to manage risk. In fact, bad risk management actually explains a lot of what's gone wrong in recent years. And that realization is one we'd be well advised to bring with us into the voting booth in...

About a year ago, I had a memorable chat with a high-ranking Republican operative. The presidential primaries were revving up, and he asked me which Republican candidate I feared the most. Without hesitating, I answered McCain.

My rationale was simple. While he was increasingly out-of-step with the public on...

With less than 40 days to go until the presidential election, let's assess where things stand.

Obama appears to be building an edge in the polls and has some upward "mo." That said, the election appears to be a lot closer than it should be given this fact: on two...

You hear that implosion reverberating through financial markets? It's the sound of decades of conservative ideology collapsing.

This raises many pressing questions, both short- and long-term. What's the deal with the Paulson deal? There's a lot of well-aimed skepticism about this plan, and myself and my EPI...

Memo: Campaign staff, surrogates, Gov. Palin, etc.
From: Rick Davis, campaign manager
Re: Elite media's hearing problem
Date: September 18, 2008

As you all know, the Obama campaign, aided by their attack dogs in the elite, liberal media, have jumped all over our candidate's alleged misstatement re...

Truth appears to be on an extended holiday, but with about fifty days left in this election cycle, this isn't the time for handwringing.

What's the best strategy when your opponent lies? It's not a simple question. The obvious move is to call them on it, but analyses...

Last week in this space I applauded the fact that a few important shards of reality broke through the predictable pageantry of the Democratic National Convention. This week, it is hard not to boo the truly fantastical specter of the RNC, where reality was banished from the hall.

So this friend of mine told me she really liked the Democratic National Convention. "Why?" I asked. "Because it wasn't 100% phony," she said.

I agree. The event was, of course, highly scripted. You can bet every speech was closely vetted. The only truly spontaneous words from that stage were...

So McCain is rich. Or, his wife is rich, and that makes him rich too. Wasn't there some movie where Dudley Moore was engaged to a women with megabucks, and he kept getting drunk and introducing her to people as my 'financier' (instead of fiancée)?

For all the ink spilled...

Every year around this time, the Census Bureau releases one of the most important government reports: the annual status of poverty, household income, and health insurance coverage. The release is scheduled for the morning of August 26th at 10; you can usually watch the press conference over the web...

Seems to me when you get right down to it, a lot of what's gone wrong in the economy, if not the country, stems from the failure of the market to accurately price risk. It sounds obscure, but if we don't get this right, we're looking at a shampoo...

To drill or not to drill -- that is the question. More precisely, that's the question that has set the terms of the debate on whether to lift the ban on oil exploration in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) and ANWR. It's also exactly the question the oil companies and...

Thomas Pynchon said something like: if they get you asking the wrong questions, they don't need to worry about the answers.

With so many aspects of our current economy in trouble, we find ourselves back in the midst of that great debate over government's role in the economy. The problem...

Bubble, bust, repeat...bubble, bust, repeat...bubble, bust, repeat...

For the last few decades, that's been the American growth recipe. The damage done by these cycles is evident in both the current downturn and the daily headlines featuring systemic failures large and small. But what may be unique about today's climate is...