David French: Can He Actually WIN?

Surprisingly, yes..

Sure, it's a long shot.  But more possible than you might think.

Or, so I claim, in the Cleveland Plain Dealer...

Excerpt:

...if the race is close, and the "third" candidate manages to take a couple of states, it's possible nobody wins a majority. The 12th Amendment would then send the election to the House of Representatives, where voting is one-state, one-vote, and the possible candidates would be restricted to the top three Electoral College vote-getters. Up until now, we have been focused on a brokered convention. But if an outsider catches fire, there might be a brokered election. Remember: The Republicans control 32 House delegations outright. If David French wins just two or three states, he could still wind up as president.

Seriously? We Have Been Doing This?

I'm astonished the government has been operating this clandestine program.

No, not NSA spying.  That is not surprising. 

I mean the subsidies from NASA to billionaire owners of corporate jets.  You didn't know?  See what I mean?

The lagniappe?  After sucking down all that heavily discounted jet fuel, now Google is encrypting, so the NSA can't spy on them any more!  It's a beautiful thing.

Expressions entirely relevant for these trying times

"The trend is your friend till the bend at the end" (hat tip to Noah S.)

 "It's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the end"

 "Bulls make money, bears make money, hogs get slaughtered"

 "Both teams played hard my man" (Rasheeeeeeeeed!!)

 Give me more in the comments!!

Tumblr of the Day

Pizza Fractals!

Let us now praise famous men

My main man, co-blogger, and friend of over 30 years, Mungowitz really outdid himself by sending me this *awesome*, nearly life-sized, David Freese world series bobblehead. 

Feast your eyes, people. Feast your eyes.

(clic the pic for an even more glorious image)

Phone call for Dr. Bernanke

In the 1970s, in response to a real shock (the oil crisis), the Fed poured money into the economy.

What did we get? Stagflation. No growth and high inflation.

Paul Volcker (with support from President Reagan and the newly Republican controlled Senate) dramatically reduced money growth, ratcheting interest rates skyward, and creating a sharp recession.

But inflation fell and has stayed under control ever since.

Now, in response to a real shock, the Fed has been pouring money into the economy and we are not getting any growth. At least this time we are not getting inflation either.

What is Christina Romer's takeaway from the historical episode I describe above? That Bernanke needs to "steal a page from the Volcker playbook" and ....... pour even more money into the economy!

WTF??

People, I am not making this up.

Look, the Fed did a great job as lender of last resort in the 2008 crisis. Without their actions, I believe things would have been very much worse.

But beyond the financial panic, we have had a very adverse real shock to the economy (housing price collapse). People are not as wealthy as they thought they were by a long shot. Households are trying to de-leverage and rebuild their balance sheets. The Federal government is making it hard for them to do that by taking on ever more debt on their behalf. This isn't a nominal shock, it's a real shock.

We have no evidence that monetary policy can or should be used to attempt to offset real shocks. The Fed absolutely did their job in the crisis. They should stand ready to guard against potential deflation. But the Fed simply does not have a magic wand to "heal the economy". It's not a patient, Bernanke is not a doctor, and monetary expansion is not medicine.