Eleven years ago, Greg Missman served in the U.S. military as an Army specialist. When he finished his tour of duty, he returned to civilian life. Last year, he lost his job as a computer consultant, and with it, his health insurance. So, he decided to re-enlist in the Army for the health insurance benefits. He was sent to Afghanistan, and one month later was killed in action.

To balance the furor over bureaucratic boards to decide whether the aged are worth saving with medical care, the financial wizards who brought on the mortgage meltdown have figured out a way to play roulette with their chances. Bankers, the New York Times reports, “plan to buy ‘life settlements,’ life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash–$400,000 for a $1 million...

The Long-Term Balanced Budget by Hunter Hatfield With regard to budgets, we in the U.S. are typically offered two choices: 1) no balanced budget rules or 2) an annual balanced budget. Currently, 32 states have a balanced budget amendment in their constitution while 11 more have statutory rules. That’s 43 of 50 states. Meanwhile, the federal government has none. As is obvious to anyone watching, there are...

Previous generations marked the holiday with parades, speeches and editorials honoring the dignity of work. Today’s theme is despair over failure to find jobs. “Labor Day 2009 is a terrible time to be an American worker,” writes Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson. “Official unemployment hovers just under 10 percent, its highest level since the early 1980s. Add in the partly employed...

That is essentially the question Josh Marshall asks about health care reform. And the answer is, when it comes to health care reform, half a loaf may well be worse than none:

The White House has just released the text of a controversial back-to-school speech that President Barack Obama will be making to our children tomorrow. The speech will be broadcast directly into the schools, mainlining into the minds of our vulnerable children in a brazen attempt to, in the guise of civics education, indoctrinate our young ones and to fill their little heads with communist propaganda. No...

Jeff Parker, Florida Today This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to run on TMV. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

by Walter Brasch It’s Labor Day, and that means millions of Americans are celebrating. Most Americans have no idea what Labor Day is, other than self-serving political speeches, hot dogs, burgers, a pool party, and the last day of a three-day holiday. Few even know that Labor Day exists to allow people to remember and honor the struggles for respect, dignity, and acceptable wages and working conditions...

Posted at WatchingAmerica.com, this article from the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph made me smile. The piece quotes a very senior Chinese official telling more good sense about their and our (America’s) economic problems than we can hear from 100 experts on American cable TV. It describes the (almost perfect) asymmetry between the U.S.’s and Chinese economic challenges as The US spends tomorrow’s...

If you’re looking for holes in our national security, try San Antonio, Texas. Or Asheville, North Carolina:

This sort of thinking is exactly what we need to turn things around. After the mortgage business imploded last year, Wall Street investment banks began searching for another big idea to make money. They think they may have found one. The bankers plan to buy “life settlements,” life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash — $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life...

It may be due to my Dutch heritage; it may be because it is just good beer, but I just love Heineken beer. Back in February of this year, when our economy and the Dutch economy were going to hell in a hand basket, I wrote an article taking some comfort in the fact that Heineken sales in 2008 had risen 27 percent, boosted mainly by the company’s acquisition of Scottish & Newcastle. Six months later,...

Embattled as he now is, Barack Obama has not lost his rhetorical touch. In today’s weekly address, he uses the fourth anniversary of the Gulf hurricane as an image for American efforts to repair the economy, reform health care and overcome political division. “Government,” he says, “must be a partner–not an opponent-–in getting things done.” His description of hands-on efforts...

Yes, no, maybe, depending on the beholder’s politics, economic theories and selective reading of the meager statistics and evidence available. Vice-President Biden speechified yesterday that, after 200 days, the $787 billion stimulus, although not a “single silver bullet” but “silver buckshot,” was helping the economy. “Without it we’d be in much deeper trouble,” he said, claiming that “Instead...

Everyone knows about the troubles at Fannie and Freddie, but the Federal Housing Administration has gotten a lot less attention even though it has had by far the most dramatic change in behavior since the implosion of the lending market. The Wall Street Journal has the goods on [one of] the next bailout[s]. The FHA insures private lenders against defaults on certain home mortgages, an inducement to make such...

Patrick Chappatte, The International Herald Tribune This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to run on TMV. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

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

No wonder Americans are increasingly opposed to Obama’s socialist, radical vision of a nationalized health care system. Just look at what Obama will do to you, to me and to our loved ones if we allow him to succeed with his downright evil plan. In the first place, Obama’s diabolical health care plan would kill many of our children even before they are born, because Obama will force pro-life doctors,...

Obama Will Not Push for a Public Option by Jon Wells In a move recognizing the sober facts of political reality, President Barack Obama, according to Politico, is shifting his strategy on health care reform, including not insisting on a public option. It will enrage his liberal base, who flew into a tizzy when HHS Sec. Kathleen Sebelius floated the idea of the public option as a non-essential portion of health...

And house much per house for the first time buyer tax credit? Calculated Risk suggests that instead of $4.2k and $8k per car and house, it really is more like $7.2k and $43k if you look at the cost for increasing sales. Even if that’s true, I’m not sure it’s the proper way to look at it because the people that would have bought anyway are still saving money and may spend it on other things...

Nate Beeler, The Washington Examiner This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to run on TMV. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

I was born and raised in Orange County, Calif., the hotbed of right-wing political conservatism. As a young reporter on The Tustin News I met and admired James. B. Utt, my congressman and probably the most conservative Republican to ever walk the halls of the House of Representatives. The closest clone to Utt in today’s Congress would be Ron Paul. But Utt was a flaming liberal compared to the ultra wing-nuts...

WASHINGTON — President Obama can still secure major health care legislation this year if he learns from his mistakes in recent months and spends more time reminding Americans why they were once eager for fundamental change. His White House lost sight of the need to make a strong case that reform would deliver specific benefits to the insured as well as the uninsured. Absent a consistent set of...

Today the voters in Japan are headed to the polls and if the pre-election polling is correct the long dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is going to experience a defeat, quite possibly by landslide margins. The LDP has ruled Japan for almost all of the 54 years since the end of World War Two but they have suffered major losses recently, including the loss of control of the less powerful upper house. This...

Too-big-to-fail is morphing into bigger-than-ever swallowing up failing-faster-than-ever. The nation’s largest banks, infused with taxpayer billions, are feasting on the weak as the Washington Post reports that “no consequence of the crisis alarms top regulators more than having banks that were already too big to fail grow even larger and more interconnected.” FDIC chair Sheila Bair sums it...