Unemployment is not as important as we think, when it comes to predicting the next President

Make no mistake: the higher the unemployment rate in November 2012, the less likely President Obama is to win a second term. But we should be careful about asserting that there is any particular threshold at which Mr. Obama would go from favorite to underdog, or any magic number at which his re-election would either …

California has lost its Republicans – not one holds office in our most populous state

Fading into irrelevance The party of Nixon and Reagan holds not one statewide office in America’s most populous state California gave America two of its five most recent Republican presidents. But the state party has fallen on hard times since the days of Nixon and Reagan. After having fallen for decades, the number of registered …

Reagan National Airport expands flights to West Coast (Portland, SF, LA, Austin)

The Department of Transportation has approved four more long-distance flights from Reagan National Airport. – Alaska Airlines will fly to Portland, JetBlue Airways will fly to San Juan, Southwest will fly to Austin and Virgin America will fly to San Francisco. – Four dominant carriers were granted permission earlier to extend long-distance flights. United now flies …

Capitalism 4.0

I try to live my life like an old college professor waiting out the vagaries of youth in favor of the bigger picture. Which means I am just now getting around to pondering our “Great Recession” and the state of our economy. My thoughts neatly fit into two parts from two authors. The first, discussed …