Media

The Peter Peterson Foundation has released its second monthly "Fiscal Confidence Index." It's worth looking at closely as a case study in how polling data can be used selectively and manipulatively -- and as a broader example of what's wrong with today's narrow, ill-informed debate over fiscal policy.

Just over a year ago, The Economist published a lovely essay on the euphemism and its generally pernicious effect on civilization -- in the bedroom, the boardroom, in politics, and so on. It's been firmly in the back of my mind lately as Whole Foods CEO John Mackey tours to promote Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business.

This section, on business, is particularly apt vis-à-vis the language of Whole Foods:

One of the main reasons GDP declined was a 22 percent decrease in defense spending. This is not a bad thing.

On January 1st of this year, 10 states raised their minimum wage. New Jersey, however, won’t be joining them. Chris Christie vetoed legislation that would have increased the state’s minimum wage to $8.50 per hour and also tie it to the consumer price index. Christie instead offered a smaller increase that would be phased in over three years with no automatic increases.

The conversative blogosphere exploded last week with reports that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program(SNAP, a.k.a food stamps) usage had grown by 7,223,000 during Obama's first term.

Tomorrow’s fourth quarter GDP release will likely show a growth rate of around 1.1. percent, a substantial slowdown from the third quarter rate of 3.1 percent. Economists will report that this means the economic growth is slowing. Yet, as we ask continually, what is actually being measured by GDP?

It falls into the good-luck-with-that category, but nevertheless the Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group and nine other organizations have announced they’re forming a coalition aimed at getting the Wisconsin Legislature to put an advisory referendum on the ballot about the growing problem of unlimited campaign spending.

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The Department of Labor (DOL) is starting to catch up with restaurants for stealing the tips their servers make. Most anyone with exposure to the service end of the restaurant industry will concur that it’s about time. 

Even if you believe the U.S. should be running big deficits right now to stimulate growth, as I do, it is easy to grow deeply disturbed by projections of rising interest payments on the national debt in the coming years.