To Our Friends: We are deeply saddened and distressed that we, along with many others, have been the victims of what may be one of the largest investment frauds in history. We are writing to inform you that the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity had $15.2 million under management with Bernard Madof...

Hilzoy writes, [T]he position of most Republicans in Congress is fundamentally unreasonable. We are, after all, talking about a party whose new chair says that “Not in the history of mankind has the government ever created a job”, which would, I’m sure, come as a surprise to this c...

President Obama has directed the EPA to approve states’ requests that they be allowed to impose tighter emissions standards on vehicle emissions. While I applaud him for keeping his campaign promise, this action is a mistake. I agree that high standards on vehicle emissions is good policy.* Em...

Seagate Technology has replaced its top two executives and said it plans to cut 800 jobs -- 10 percent of its U.S. work force -- as the hard drive maker endures a bruising slowdown in technology spending. Its stock fell more than 15 percent. In a surprise move, the Scotts Valley, Calif.-based compan...

One of columnists I read fairly regularly is Jack Kelly, who is published in the Toledo Blade (a great newspaper for a city of its size) and, I believe, its parent/sister paper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Kelly, to be fair, is not normally in tin-foil hat territory, like so many right-wing media t...

He says, Here’s how I see it: the opponents of a strong stimulus plan don’t really have an alternative to offer. They don’t even have a really coherent critique; as Brad DeLong points out, if you believe that a surge in private spending would raise employment — and even the critics agree on ...

In her best-seller, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand created a character, probably known to most of the people who read this blog. His name was John Galt. Galt was Rand’s archetypal hero — a self-made, successful man, who resented the “looters” (the mob of union members, the envious,...

Not so widely reported in the auto bailout story is the link between Bush and principals of Chrysler owner Cerberus Financial Management. Amost immediately after stepping down as Bush’s Secretary of the Treasury, John Snow became chairman of Cerberus. Former Republican Veep Dan Quayle, who has...

The Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art is in serious financial trouble due to an excessive focus on art. As the New York Times notes, When this city’s Museum of Contemporary Art appointed a classically trained curator from the Art Institute of Chicago as its director in 1999, many viewed it a...

My father was notorious for claiming some anecdote as though it happened to him personally, so I took with a grain of salt his stories of boot camp during World War II and his alleged drill sergeant who would curse between syllables. “Hold that rifle perpen-gawddamn-dicular there, Ridgely!� he s...