From Politico:

"Republicans once idolized Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback as a tax cutting superstar — now he’s a lesson in what not to do.

“It’s a cautionary tale on a national scale … Many of us felt that [Kansas] had been too aggressive,” said Indiana Senate Majority Leader and tax committee chairman Brandt Hershman, who helped GOP Gov. Mike Pence cut corporate taxes last spring. “We all like low taxes … but we have to ensure the stability of a revenue stream to provide basic services that our citizens expect.”

And from Forbes:


"Sam Brownback (R) predicted that the tax cuts would spur economic development, investment, and a lot of job creation. Indeed, Arthur Laffer, who developed the Kansas tax cut plan, practically guaranteed success. But it didn’t work. The Kansas economy is stagnating, the deficit has grown, and the state’s bond ratings have been embarrassingly downgraded."

From a new NBER working paper by Mishkin and White:

"Reviewing the evidence for central banks’ crisis management in the U.S., the U.K. and France from the late nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth century, we find that there were precedents for all of the unusual actions taken by the Fed. When these were successful interventions, they followed contingent and target rules that permitted pre-emptive actions to forestall worse crises but were combined with measures to mitigate moral hazard."

No surprise here, but proof that Dick Cheney deliberately misled the American public into war:

"The cable reads that 'there is not one USG (counterterrorism) or FBI expert that...has said they have evidence or 'know' that (Atta) was indeed (in Prague). In fact, the analysis has been quite the opposite.'

In a 2001 interview with NBC's 'Meet the Press,' then-Vice President Dick Cheney said, 'It's been pretty well confirmed that (Atta) did go to Prague, and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in (the Czech Republic) last April, several months before the attack.'

Cheney repeated those claims, which were based on a single source, as the nation prepared for war."

From the intrepid reporters at The Onion:


"While those with higher incomes used to be able to get by with just a single reliable sailboat, that is no longer the case. Over the past 15 years, changing financial circumstances have led more and more affluent individuals across the country to get a second watercraft...”

John Antle III's piece on the CIA report is worth a read (HT: Andrew Sullivan):

"It is difficult to take someone seriously who thinks the imprisonment of human beings in cages and the behavior of government agents with guns have less impact on personal freedom than the capital-gains tax rate. That is one reason it is so easy for many to dismiss arguments against programs like Obamacare as being motivated purely by economic self-interest."

Sad news about one of the leading financial historians, John James.  From EH.net:

John Allan James, professor of economics and professor of history at the University of Virginia, died November 28, 2014 of an unexpected cardiac event in Charlottesville, Virginia. Born March 8, 1946, in Houston, Texas, John was the son of Bessie Hajek James and Ross Bradley James. He was the valedictorian of his class at Sam Houston High School and graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. from Rice University in 1968. He was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.  In 1974 John received his Ph.D. in economics from MIT.  John joined the Department of Economics at the University of Virginia in 1973 and UVa's Corcoran Department of History at a later date. He was a leading scholar in economic history, combining the archival methodology of history with the quantitative statistical tools of economics. 

His dissertation on the U.S. banking system was published by Princeton University Press as Money and Capital Markets in Postbellum America. He published over fifty articles in scholarly journals on subjects ranging from savings in Japan to wages and unemployment in the U.S. At this death he had nearly completed a book manuscript with David Weiman of Barnard College on payment systems in nineteenth century America. John actively participated in conferences and seminars around the world, served as a visiting faculty member at many universities on several continents and was awarded prestigious prizes and fellowships for his work. These included Guggenheim, Danforth, Woodrow Wilson and National Science Foundation fellowships. In addition John was a visiting fellow at All Souls College at Oxford University. John James was predeceased by his parents and first wife, Marylin Smith James. 

He is survived by his loving wife Sally Cary Booker-James, his devoted daughter Caroline Victoria James, former mother-in-law Winifred W. Smith and relatives in Texas, as well as cherished friends around the world.  John's great passion was continually learning about known and new subjects; books were always by his side.  He loved world-wide travel and classical music, especially opera.  He was a connoisseur of fine food and an ever curious oenophile. John was a member of the Wednesday Evening Seminar and practiced Zen meditation with the Clear Spring Zen Buddhist Sangha of Charlottesville. He was a founding member of the Vinegar Hill Theater and an ardent supporter of the Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival and the Tuesday Evening Concert Series. In lieu of flowers the family asks that memorial contributions be made to the Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival at Virginia Chamber Music Foundation, PO Box 1491, Charlottesville, VA 22902 or to the Charlottesville Albemarle S.P.C.A. at  3355 Berkmar Dr., Charlottesville, VA 22901.