Archive for January, 2011

Party On!

By John Lumbard.   When we launched this blog the federal debt was 12-and-something trillion, and we were fretting about the first trillion-dollar budget deficit.  Really, I shouldn't have been surprised to see the $14 trillion number at the top of our home page, but it touched a nerve anyway.  And...
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A New Year’s Resolution of Thanksgiving

by John Lumbard.   “A growing body of research suggests that maintaining an attitude of gratitude can improve psychological, emotional and physical well-being.  Adults who frequently feel grateful have more energy, more optimism, more social connections and more happiness than those who do not, according to studies conducted over the past...
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The ENTIRE Government Runs on Borrowed Money

By Ron Olive.   (To the Editor of the Wall Street Journal)   Sir:   In “Revenues Are Rising” (Review & Outlook, January 12th), you tell us that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, federal receipts “have climbed by $44 billion, or nearly 9%, to $531 billion” during the first quarter of fiscal...
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I Want It All . . . Later?

By James Schaefer In a recent opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, "For My Dad, the 'New Normal' Is Old Hat", John Bussey writes about his 91-year-old father's austerity, and how that behavior has become the "new normal" (link). The 1980s were sometimes referred to as the "I want it all...
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Incentives Rule!

By John Lumbard.   In December the Boston Globe ran a front-page story on the “dangerous incentives” created by a program that offers cash to the parents of children taking psychotropic drugs for ADHD and other behavioral conditions.  The number of children on these drugs has predictably swelled, and a program...
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