More Economic Links

-Nate Silver points out that most Americans are pretty far off when they guess how our federal government spends our tax dollars

-A recent study by Northeastern economists finds that individuals from lower-income households are much more likely to be unemployed (see chart below).  The Economist wonders whether Democrats or Republicans will be able to connect better with the unemployed blue collar workers.

-Two Op-Ed columnists from the NY Times offer differing opinions on how Obama should approach the next year.  Conservative columnist David Brooks says that Obama was elected because people wanted a post-partisan leader, not because people wanted his Democratic agenda.  He argues that Obama should aim for incremental change and show Americans that their country is governable.  Liberal columnist Paul Krugman, on the other hand, is sick of the Republicans taking dishonest stances on fiscal issues, particularly medicare, and thinks it's time for Obama to take charge.

The one thing on which both agree?  Republicans are being hypocritical.  Brooks writes that Obama:

could continue to champion his fiscal commission. Republicans are being completely hypocritical on this, unwilling to embrace an idea they once supported because it might lead to tax increases. If he really put aside the publicity gimmicks, he could illustrate the difference between responsible government and the permanent campaign.

Krugman is more strident, concluding that:


The bottom line, then, is that the crusade against health reform has relied, crucially, on utter hypocrisy: Republicans who hate Medicare, tried to slash Medicare in the past, and still aim to dismantle the program over time, have been scoring political points by denouncing proposals for modest cost savings — savings that are substantially smaller than the spending cuts buried in their own proposals.

And if Democrats don’t get their act together and push the almost-completed reform across the goal line, this breathtaking act of staggering hypocrisy will succeed.

Both essentially agree that Republicans' about-face on various issues is politically savvy.  As Brooks acknowledges, "Right now, the Republicans have no political incentive to deal on anything".

-On a completely different note, here's an interesting projection of the number of medals each country will win in the current Olympics