Economists have a lot of ways to measure how the economy is doing. I’ve got a measure of my own — at least about the local economy of my neighborhood and a few surrounding areas. It’s the number of yard sales every weekend, and the kind of things being offered. Yard sales hereabouts used to be an adult version of kids’ lemonade stands. They were basically just fun affairs, a chance to sit...

Warren Buffett bought 63 daily and weekly newspapers in the Southeast for $142 million from financially troubled Media General Inc. of Richmond, Va. Buffett said he might buy more newspapers. “Any time we can add properties we like, to management we like, at a price we like, we’re ready to go.” The newspapers are in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama and Florida. “In towns and cities...

Sometimes it’s hard to do the right thing, and sometimes it’s politically difficult to do the right thing. ~ JOHN BOEHNER Will the House Republican leadership ever learn? Probably not. In a dizzying week of developments, House Speaker John Boehner again threatened to shut down the federal government by not agreeing to raise the debt ceiling (something that the great conservative god Ronald Reagan advocated...

by WALTER BRASCH It’s time to retire the 99 percent. Not the people, but the slogan that identifies the Occupy Movement. “We’re the 99 percent” slogan focused upon two completely different groups of people. The 99 percent are the masses, the impoverished, the disenfranchised, the middle class; the 1 percent refers to the concentration of wealth in the top one percent of the population and in the dominance...

WASHINGTON — Mitt Romney was against Bill Clinton before he was for him. There was Romney, campaigning Tuesday in Iowa, praising the nation’s last Democratic president and casting him as far superior to the current incumbent. “Almost a generation ago, Bill Clinton announced that the era of big government was over,” Romney declared. “Clinton was signaling to his own party...

U.S. Congress members appear to be considering redeploying American nuclear assets to the Korean Peninsula. Would such a decision make matters there go from bad to worse? This editorial from China’s state-run Huanqiu warns of the unintended consequences of pointing nuclear weapons in North Korea’s general direction. The Huanqiu editorial says in small part: Right now, the two Koreas target one another...

If you scan through all the media attention Romney’s speech received, you are hard-pressed to find any news accounts that tell readers the following rather relevant points: 1) Nonpartisan experts believe Romney’s plans would increase the deficit far more than Obama’s would. 2) George W. Bush’s policies arguably are more responsible for increasing the deficit than Obama’s are. …Greg...

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David Fitzsimmons, The Arizona Star This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Christopher Weyant, The Hill This copyrighted cartoon was licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Daryl Cagle, MSNBC.com This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

It’s all a reality show now as the “First Gay President” invites himself to make a graduation speech in the neighborhood where he came of age half a lifetime ago. “This recession has been more brutal, the job losses steeper, politics seems nastier, Congress is more gridlocked than ever, some folks in the financial sector have been less than model citizens,” Barack Obama tells the class of ’12 at...

Dan Ariely, the behavioral economist and author of Predictably Irrational, has done some research into the gap between what Americans say they want and what our political system (and their voting behavior) has given us. From Radio Open Source: First, when he asks his thousands of respondents to estimate the real division of wealth in the US, and then to propose an ideal distribution, we Americans confirm our...

WASHINGTON — Republicans say they’re eager for the presidential campaign to turn away from “distractions” and focus instead on the economy. Someone should warn them that if they’re not careful, they might get their wish. It is true that voters’ unhappiness with high unemployment and slow growth poses a challenge for President Obama as he seeks re-election. But for Mitt...

Matter of months , Paul Krugman predicts. 1. Greek euro exit, very possibly next month. 2. Huge withdrawals from Spanish and Italian banks, as depositors try to move their money to Germany. 3a. Maybe, just possibly, de facto controls, with banks forbidden to transfer deposits out of country and limits on cash withdrawals. 3b. Alternatively, or maybe in tandem, huge draws on ECB credit to keep the...

Tom Janssen, The Netherlands It looks now like Greece will hold new elections in June andd that the “spend whatever we need to spend” coalition will win,even though most responsible politicians from mainstream left to mainstream right recognize this is a bad move. We may think that such elections don’t matter to us but they do. The Greek economy is already in chaos and if this continues then...

John Darkow, Columbia Daily Tribune, Missouri This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

President Obama recently announced he was in favor of “Gay Marriage” but added that it was up to the 50 states to decide. He simultaneously did not mention his position on the repeal of the 1996 Federal law called “The Defense of Marriage Act” (DOMA – Codified in 1 USC Sec. 7 & 28 USC Sec. 1738C). DOMA permits each state to ignore the acts and laws of other states when it comes to recognizing...

Poor, poor Jaimie Dimon. My heart goes out to the man, Selig. But Mr. B, he’s a competitor. He heads another Wall Street bank, JPMorgan Chase. I know Selig. I know. But his company lost $2 billion on some trading deals. Lost money, Selig! It was terribly embarrassing for the poor man. But don’t Wall Street banks often lose money on their trading? Almost never, Selig. Goldman made money 25 days last...