The stock market hasn't been this nasty since the 1970s. House prices continue their dive, and consumer confidence has gone splat. The rocketing federal budget deficit will probably orbit Mars by the time the government finishes cleaning up the mess left by the housing bubble it so blithely let fester.
For many years, Robert Morgenthau has warned America that the nexus of capitalism and criminality poses a serious threat to our prosperity, security and growth.
I have really learned to like Ben Bernanke. He's the man. And his interest-rate cuts are vastly more effective than the so-called economic-stimulus rebate plan coming out of Congress and the White House.
John F. Kennedy was correct about life and politics when he famously said, "Life isn't fair." Not only is politics unfair, it may be the least fair part of life. In many election years, if we had blue-ribbon selection panels charged with considering only the qualifications and likely performance of potential presidents, governors, and senators, the list of winners would likely be quite different from the ones actually elected by the voters.
A major strategist in John McCain's campaign was asked privately this week whether his candidate might propose cutting the payroll tax.
The USA Today/Gallup survey clearly explains why Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is losing.
Seinfeld's George Costanza famously quipped: "It's not a lie if you believe it." This is how a Clinton -- take your pick, Hillary, Bill or Chelsea -- makes it through the day. Better living through self-delusion.
What exactly is wrong with an optimistic president who has confidence in the long-run future of the American economy?
We called it "the robot rule." I still have an old and slightly rusty pin showing a robot with a red slash through it. "Delegates are not robots" was our rallying cry in seeking to defeat what was then Rule 11(h) of the Delegate Selection Rules, or Rule f(3)(c) of the Convention Rules, which bound delegates to vote at the convention for the candidate to whom they were pledged according to the results of their state's primary or caucus.
If we're going to bail out Wall Street, shouldn't we also rescue homeowners? "Yes!" the Democrats answer. And faster than Roger Federer returns a tennis ball, conservative voices hit back with reasons -- some rather odd -- for helping the former and not the latter.
"I was deeply involved in the Irish peace process." Those words were uttered by Hillary Clinton — with a straight face!
Barack Obama's speech last week, hastily prepared to extinguish the firestorm over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, won critical praise for style and substance but failed politically.
Now that Hillary Clinton's schedule as first lady has been released, her near-total lack of serious involvement in the real inner workings of the government is bluntly apparent.
It's a generational thing. That was the theme of Barack Obama's speech last Tuesday, in which he both failed to renounce and at the same time separated himself from the man he has described as his spiritual mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
TMI stands for Too Much Information. That's how I feel about David Patterson and his sex life. I know more than I want to know, or need to know, about whom he's slept with and why, and when, and about whom his wife slept with, and who was getting even with whom, and when it stopped.
"Well, that's history. That's the past. That's talking about what happened before. What we should be talking about is what we're going to do now."
Did Bear Stearns really need to go down in flames? It's a question that needs to be asked, and my answer is no.
This week's detour into the murk of racial politics underlines that it's going to be a long, hard slog on the Democratic side.
In distancing himself from the heated remarks of his pastor, Barack Obama did as well as anyone could do in his position. The problem is his position, which is having sat in the reverend's pews for 20 years without thinking to pick up and leave.
The Federal Reserve's unprecedented bailout of Bear Stearns was crafted not at the White House or Treasury, but in secret by a New York central banker whose name is unknown to Washington power brokers and was a Clinton administration presidential appointee.
