Ezra Klein - Economic and Domestic Policy, and Lots of It - May 23, 2010

How to build your condos (in China)

By Ezra Klein The itinerary said "rural village," but we were actually in a suburb. A nice suburb. It looked like a small slice of Northern California had been transplanted onto the outskirts of Dalian, China. Think I'm kidding?...

By Ezra Klein | May 29, 2010; 6:13 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (40)

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Markets in everything, China edition

By Ezra Klein One of the big stories in China has been a spate of suicides and suicide attempts at Foxconn, a major manufacturer that employs 800,000 workers and produces, among other things, Apple's iPad. As someone who's read a...

By Ezra Klein | May 28, 2010; 6:50 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (7)

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Reconciliation

By Dylan Matthews Today, Mike considered do-it-yourself college as an issue of the public domain, I praised EPA regulation of livestock production, Kate looked at the Bush administration's role in enabling the oil spill, Jonathan argued that conservatives have lost...

By Washington Post editor | May 28, 2010; 6:30 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Nominations

By Jonathan Bernstein I definitely need more practice at this group-blogging thing. While I was busy writing my own post on appointments, I failed to notice that Dylan Matthews had an excellent post right here on Ezra's blog on ......

By Jennifer Abella | May 28, 2010; 5:47 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (0)

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More action on nominations, please

By Jonathan Bernstein Yesterday I watched Richard Durbin, the Democratic whip, spend some time on the floor of the Senate complaining again about Republican obstruction on the subject of nominations. Durbin said that there are some 107 nominees who have...

By Washington Post editor | May 28, 2010; 5:20 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (3)

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Pardon them

By Jonathan Bernstein I've argued for some time that President Obama should react to Bush-era torture by giving a blanket pardon to everyone involved, and then establishing a truth and reconciliation commission to make it clear what happened and why...

By Washington Post editor | May 28, 2010; 4:44 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (8)

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Why ask the Senate?

By Dylan Matthews At his Washington Post blog, NYU professor Paul Light has a typically smart suggestion for speeding up the appointments process: Any presidential post that remains vacant for six months should be automatically abolished as a presidential appointment....

By Washington Post editor | May 28, 2010; 3:21 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (3)

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Gulf spill: An opportunity for change?

By Kate Sheppard At yesterday's news conference on the gulf oil spill, President Obama made an appeal to Congress to pass a comprehensive climate and energy bill this year. "If nothing else this disaster should serve as a wake-up call...

By Jennifer Abella | May 28, 2010; 1:30 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (13)

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'DIY U' and the future of public education

By Mike Konczal Ed from gin and tacos can make it rain, and this caustic review of "DIY U" from a political science professor starts with something that made me laugh: When free market enthusiasts attempt to sell an idea...

By Washington Post editor | May 28, 2010; 12:47 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (15)

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Farming as an environmental issue

By Dylan Matthews Good news out of the EPA today, as the agency has settled a lawsuit from the National Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, and Waterkeeper Alliance by agreeing to tougher regulation of factory farms: Animal waste, bacteria and...

By Washington Post editor | May 28, 2010; 11:50 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (4)

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Ideology and the spill

By Jonathan Bernstein On the one hand, I sort of like what I think Yuval Levin is trying to do in this post at NRO, because I think it points to a more honest small-government conservative rhetoric. I'm really not...

By Washington Post editor | May 28, 2010; 11:20 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (40)

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China and the market

By Ezra Klein "Something that emerges quite quickly and a bit unexpectedly from being taken around on an economics-focused tour of China is that the Chinese economic miracle is really a great deal less of a 'free market' miracle...

By Ezra Klein | May 28, 2010; 11:00 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (14)
Categories: China
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'DIY U' and the 'Romance of the Public Domain'

By Mike Konczal I want to talk a bit about Anya Kamenetz's "DIY U" in two posts. First we need to talk about the "Romance of the Public Domain," something that is the mirror image of "The Tragedy of the...

By Washington Post editor | May 28, 2010; 10:30 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (9)

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The curse of Bush

By Kate Sheppard The Obama administration has faced harsh criticism for its oversight of offshore oil and gas development in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The most absurd commentary, of course, comes from Republicans who have consistently pushed...

By Washington Post editor | May 28, 2010; 9:35 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (28)

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Wonkbook: Biggest leak ever; Geithner in Europe; scrapping the mortgage deduction

Dylan Matthews is writing Wonkbook while Ezra is in China. The BP oil spill is now the biggest oil leak disaster in American history, stripping Exxon Valdez of its title. Meanwhile, Tim Geithner is coordinating banking regulation and austerity policies...

By Washington Post editor | May 28, 2010; 8:34 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (9)

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Reconciliation

By Dylan Matthews Today, Ezra compared the risks of the "top kill" and of climate change, I argued that freezing federal wages hurts the regulatory state, Jonathan looked at why libertarians are portrayed as extreme, and Kate outlined the economic...

By Jennifer Abella | May 27, 2010; 6:30 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (5)

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The effects of immigration on wages

By Mike Konczal One of the most counterintuitive ideas in the current debate is that the long-run impact of immigration on wages is zero. Counterintuitive and controversial. Simple supply and demand would lead us to believe, all things being equal,...

By Washington Post editor | May 27, 2010; 6:00 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (24)

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Obama's offshore dance

By Kate Sheppard President Obama faced tough questions from the media Thursday about the administration's response to the gulf disaster. But more significant in the long term is how the gulf oil spill is shaping his approach to energy. Obama...

By Washington Post editor | May 27, 2010; 5:20 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (8)

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Watching primary elections

By Jonathan Bernstein Want to know whether Republicans will in fact take back the House of Representatives next year? Well, the two things I'd want to know about it are economic growth from now through November, and Barack Obama's approval...

By Washington Post Editors | May 27, 2010; 4:45 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (1)

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Arizona case may spell trouble for fair elections act

By Dylan Matthews Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog has a good summary of a case at the Supreme Court in which a group of candidates are challenging Arizona's public financing system. Arizona provides funds to candidates who receive a certain number...

By Washington Post Editors | May 27, 2010; 2:54 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (10)

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Risk and climate change

By Ezra Klein I'm glad to hear the "top kill" is working to plug the BP leak, and also that Barack Obama has rediscovered the term "climate change." The case I, and others, have made to illustrate the connection between...

By Ezra Klein | May 27, 2010; 11:42 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (51)
Categories: Climate Change
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Frozen salaries and revolving doors

By Dylan Matthews I suppose it's to be expected that calls for federal employee wage freezes would become a key policy plank of deficit hawks and libertarians. It's an easy tack to take. Most voters don't suffer when the livelihoods...

By Washington Post Editors | May 27, 2010; 11:08 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (18)

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Here comes impeachment

By Jonathan Bernstein What's at stake in the elections this fall? Energy/climate? Tax cuts? Management of the economy? Well, sure, all those things. It's worth pointing out, however, that what's also at stake is the impeachment of Barack Obama. I...

By Washington Post Editors | May 27, 2010; 10:45 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (33)

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Wailing echoes down the corridors

By Jonathan Bernstein I was going to leave Conor Friedersdorf's column about coverage of Rand Paul alone, until I got to this bit: [T]he media seem to reflexively treat some ideas and candidates less seriously than others for no legitimate,...

By Washington Post editor | May 27, 2010; 10:00 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (12)

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Carbon pricing and jobs

By Kate Sheppard In a new report out this week, Third Way makes a clear case for why pricing carbon dioxide emissions is good economic policy, pushing back against those who argue it would amount to "economic Armageddon." The authors...

By Washington Post editor | May 27, 2010; 9:30 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (12)

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Wonkbook: Shrinking jobs bill; Medicaid costs; SEC to track trading

Dylan Matthews is writing Wonkbook while Ezra is in China. The latest jobs bill is being pared down to cater to centrist members of Congress. Will this stop additional bills in the future? Meanwhile, a study suggests that the federal...

By Washington Post editor | May 27, 2010; 9:10 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (1)

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Obama steps up on spill

By Kate Sheppard Earlier this week I bemoaned that President Obama and his administration were missing out on an opportunity to promote a major overhaul to our energy system. I'm not alone in that belief -- see Tom Friedman and...

By Washington Post editor | May 27, 2010; 8:44 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (7)

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Pictures from China

By Ezra Klein | May 26, 2010; 8:46 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (8)

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China's race with growth

My understanding is that it's pretty much a rule that if you visit China you have to do some smog-blogging, and I'm happy to comply: The smog is really, really bad. Bad enough, actually, that it totally transforms the...

By Ezra Klein | May 26, 2010; 7:53 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (19)
Categories: China
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Reconciliation

By Dylan Matthews Today, Jonathan looked at ways of reforming the presidential nomination process, I argued that race is important in understanding American welfare state skepticism, Kate Sheppard examined Senate efforts to remove EPA authority over climate change, and Mike...

By Washington Post editor | May 26, 2010; 6:30 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (2)

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Race, culture and the welfare state

By Dylan Matthews AEI President Arthur Brooks's theory that the U.S. is culturally oriented toward free enterprise is problematic as a prescriptive matter, for reasons Matt Zeitlin details here. But I'm not so sure the empirical point, that there's a...

By Washington Post editor | May 26, 2010; 4:00 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (32)

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'W' is written into our historical memories, as well as our federal budget

By Mike Konczal It would be hard to think of the period of 2001-2010 as anything other than the "W" years. Even with Obama in office riding the wave of a new kind of political energy and organizing, the first...

By Washington Post editor | May 26, 2010; 3:39 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (14)

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Will Congress take away climate Plan B?

By Kate Sheppard With the Senate climate and energy legislation facing an unclear path forward, more attention is being paid to greenhouse gas regulations expected from the Environmental Protection Agency, and the litany of legislative measures in the works that...

By Washington Post editor | May 26, 2010; 2:42 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (7)

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Even more on line-item hokum

By Jonathan Bernstein Over at Capitol Gaines and Games, Pete Davis has an excellent post giving reasons why the line-item veto proposal is a bad idea (see also Stan Collender's post). Not only is he more concise than I am,...

By Washington Post editor | May 26, 2010; 2:32 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (3)

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Covering Palin

By Jonathan Bernstein Should the press pay attention to Sarah Palin? In the wake of yet another Palin fiasco -- what Dave Weigel called a "strange and, frankly, immature" attack on the author Joe McGinniss -- Greg Sargent asks: At...

By Washington Post editor | May 26, 2010; 1:15 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (30)

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Presidential nomination process update

By Jonathan Bernstein I know that almost no one wants to think about presidential elections right now, but the truth is that Republicans are already running, and after November they will start doing so even more openly. After all, by...

By Washington Post editor | May 26, 2010; 12:45 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (2)

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Appropriations confusion

By Dylan Matthews You already saw this if you read Wonkbook, but David Rogers's story of how a $23 billion emergency funding package to save teachers' jobs got sunk in the Senate is remarkable: A $23 billion emergency proposal to...

By Kendra Nichols | May 26, 2010; 12:00 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (39)

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The debate over GSE reform is beginning

By Mike Konczal As opposed to the conservative meme, the financial crisis was not simply about providing housing for low-income folks. Or even regular folks. It was a bubble-bust cycle that was in every category of credit -- CRE, credit...

By Washington Post editor | May 26, 2010; 11:07 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (7)

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Subsidize my love

By Kate Sheppard Our country's deference to the oil industry has become very clear in the past month. Most Americans now realize that neither BP nor the government was adequately prepared for a disaster like the one we've seen unfold...

By Washington Post editor | May 26, 2010; 9:22 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (23)

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Wonkbook: U.S., Europe split on FinReg; more drilling oversight; industry and regulation

Dylan Matthews is writing Wonkbook while Ezra is in China. The U.S. and Europe are taking different approaches to FinReg. Can this work in a global economy? Meanwhile, Obama promises stricter rules governing offshore drilling. And Steve Pearlstein thinks industry...

By Washington Post editor | May 26, 2010; 8:47 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (4)

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Reconciliation

By Dylan Matthews Today, Jonathan critiqued the administration's line item veto proposal, Ezra examined how China wields power, I questioned whether the Joe Sestak scandal is really scandalous, Kate reported on how the administration will raise the liability cap, and...

By Washington Post Editors | May 25, 2010; 6:30 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Richard Koo on balance sheet recessions

By Mike Konczal The specter of a Japanese lost decade is still floating out there. Paul Krugman has a post today about yelling fire in Noah's flood, with links to a talk by Adam Posen of the Bank of England....

By Washington Post Editors | May 25, 2010; 6:22 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (1)

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DADT repeal on schedule -- Obama's schedule

By Jonathan Bernstein Via Andrew Sullivan, Brian Beutler over at TPM reports that according to Sen. Carl Levin, the Obama administration "got religion on the issue 'in the last few days.' " Sullivan wonders: "Why did Obama change his tune?"...

By Washington Post Editors | May 25, 2010; 5:20 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (5)

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Direction on the oil spill liability cap

By Kate Sheppard The Obama administration today finally weighed in on the question of how high the liability cap should be raised for oil spills, arguing that there should be no limit at all -- at least for drilling in...

By Washington Post editor | May 25, 2010; 3:45 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (21)

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Large banking interests create a Web page against interchange finreg

By Mike Konczal You want to know how I can tell that the interchange reform in the Senate bill was a surprise story? Because the last-minute lobbying campaign against it is so obviously a thrown-together, half-baked effort by the biggest...

By Washington Post Editors | May 25, 2010; 3:10 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (5)

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Madam speaker

By Jonathan Bernstein I highly recommend to everyone a series of posts by guest author and scholar of speakers Matthew Green over at the Monkey Cage. (And by the way, I should thank Ezra for his support of blogging political...

By Washington Post Editors | May 25, 2010; 2:52 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Is D.C. dangerous?

By Ezra Klein I'm worried that if I wait until I return from China to comment on Conor Friedersdorf's essay about the evil social pressures of Washington, D.C., no one will care what I have to say on it. Actually,...

By Ezra Klein | May 25, 2010; 2:48 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (2)

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'Veggie'

By Ezra Klein Helene York was annoyed to read a menu for steamed buns -- in Palo Alto, not in China -- that advertised three flavors: "Slow-Smoked Pulled Pork, Bacon Cheeseburger or Veggie." Two of those, you'll notice, actually correspond...

By Ezra Klein | May 25, 2010; 1:33 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Food
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China's power, and how they use it

By Ezra Klein Americans don't necessarily like funding the military and aid expenditures that go along with being the world's single superpower, but they're pretty into the idea of being that superpower. That's why the conflict with China that's implied...

By Ezra Klein | May 25, 2010; 12:32 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: China
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Gave their souls for the cause

By Dylan Matthews Conor Friedersdorf's piece on D.C. journalist/advocacy culture has provoked its fair share of commentary already. Not living in Washington myself, I'll leave the task of defending the city, and its social life, to Ryan Avent and Jonathan...

By Washington Post Editors | May 25, 2010; 11:55 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (3)

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Shortening the Treadmill

By Dylan Matthews NYU professor Joshua Tucker argues that colleges should award bachelor's degrees after three years – not by adding summer classes, as Stephen Joel Trachtenberg and Gerald Kauvar argue in the New York Times this morning, but by...

By Washington Post Editors | May 25, 2010; 11:45 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (18)

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Kagan and congressional failure

By Jonathan Bernstein It's fun to be blogging with Dylan Matthews; I've been a fan for a while now. I think he's right to point out that one of the outcomes of the past year or so is likely to...

By Washington Post editor | May 25, 2010; 11:30 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (0)

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What scandal?

By Dylan Matthews Dave Weigel has pretty thoroughly debunked the meme that the Obama administration offered Rep. Joe Sestak the post of secretary of the Navy to prevent him from challenging Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania Senate primary (a primary...

By Washington Post Editors | May 25, 2010; 11:22 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (22)

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The FinReg battle: The next two years

By Mike Konczal Dave Dayen, noting that the financial sector is starting to breathe a sigh of relief over how much it is getting away with, starts to consider what "the blueprint for what the response should look like in...

By Washington Post editor | May 25, 2010; 10:40 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (1)

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The big offshore lie

By Kate Sheppard The Obama administration, in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico disaster, has apparently decided that digging in on its misguided decision in March to expand offshore drilling is the way to go. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar...

By Washington Post editor | May 25, 2010; 10:15 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (16)

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Still with the line-item hokum

By Jonathan Bernstein Via the Hill, it seems that Barack Obama is moving ahead with his request to Congress for new budget procedures similar to the old line-item veto, which turned out to be unconstitutional. As those who hang out...

By Washington Post editor | May 25, 2010; 10:00 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (3)

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What happens if the Supreme Court rules aganst the individual mandate?

By Ezra Klein Megan McArdle wonders what would happen if the Supreme Court declared the individual mandate in health-care reform unconstitutional. My guess is it would get replaced with something like the modified individual mandate that Paul Starr has proposed:...

By Ezra Klein | May 25, 2010; 9:48 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (13)

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How high the liability cap?

By Kate Sheppard There's growing frustration about the administration's response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, with complaints that officials have been sluggish in demanding BP be more transparent and hesitant to criticize the company's inability to...

By Washington Post editor | May 25, 2010; 9:09 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (11)

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Wonkbook: Obama's line-item veto; the GOP in conference; federal budget waste

Dylan Matthews is writing Wonkbook while Ezra is in China. President Obama wants a line-item veto, which his administration says will, unlike Bill Clinton's, pass constitutional muster. The GOP has picked a set of FinReg skeptics to represent it in...

By Washington Post editor | May 25, 2010; 8:41 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (4)

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Dumpling follies

By Ezra Klein The reason I'm in China is to learn about the country's roaring economy. The reason I'm excited to be in China is to learn about the country's cuisine, which regular readers will know to be a...

By Ezra Klein | May 24, 2010; 8:21 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (17)
Categories: China
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Reconciliation

By Dylan Matthews Today, Kate argued the administration must do more to stop the oil spill, I explained why this isn't a "progressive moment," Mike listed parts of FinReg that are better in the House version, Jonathan looked at how...

By Washington Post editor | May 24, 2010; 6:21 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (1)

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Obama's missed opportunities

By Kate Sheppard Update, 5:26 p.m.: Obama did mention the Senate bill in his announcement of new fuel economy standards for trucks Friday. There have been plenty of other opportunities to make this connection, however. Original post: Throughout the past...

By Washington Post editor | May 24, 2010; 5:27 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (21)

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A new normal and New York Magazine on financial reform

By Mike Konczal I remember when everything was back to "normal." It was when John Cassidy flagged, on his blog, Ken Chenault, the longtime CEO of American Express, getting paid $80 million dollars. How has American Express been doing the...

By Washington Post Editors | May 24, 2010; 4:46 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (1)

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Policy battles are far more complex than civics class lets on

By Jonathan Bernstein In my earlier post responding to Dylan Matthews, I didn't get around to talking about or even citing the excellent Charlie Savage NYT article he was working from. That's a mistake on my part: It's an excellent...

By Washington Post Editors | May 24, 2010; 4:26 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (1)

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Blogging tweets

By Ezra Klein Normally I'd tweet something this short and trivial, but since Twitter appears to be blocked in China, I'll just blog it: Wedding Crashers, which I watched on the plane, is a much more plausible-seeming moving in the...

By Ezra Klein | May 24, 2010; 2:04 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Administration has obligation to do more on oil spill

By Kate Sheppard Earlier I asked why President Obama hasn't done more to take charge in the Gulf as the oil disaster drags into month two. I think it's fairly clear that the administration has no desire to take over...

By Washington Post Editors | May 24, 2010; 1:46 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (6)

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What are good reforms in the House finreg bill that aren't in the Senate?

By Mike Konczal Opinion is still mixing about the status of the financial reform bill. Some are calling it revolutionary, some are saying it’s a disappointment and a missed opportunity. Here's my take: It's a perfectly reasonable first response to...

By Washington Post Editors | May 24, 2010; 12:16 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (2)

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More complaints about the U.S Pavilion at the 2010 World Expo

By Ezra Klein Matt's post reminds me of possibly the most absurd part of the U.S.' video presentation at the World Expo: It ends with Kobe Bryant touting "teamwork" as a fundamental American value. Kobe Bryant! It's like me being...

By Ezra Klein | May 24, 2010; 12:01 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (4)

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Is economic freedom another way of saying we need to build more prisons?

By Mike Konczal One of the fascinating things about Rand Paul's election and the rise of a new more libertarian mindset in the popular conscience will be a newfound focus on the idea of "economic freedom." I've been thinking of...

By Washington Post editor | May 24, 2010; 12:00 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (14)

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The Establishment

By Jonathan Bernstein Jamelle Bouie has a great post up over at Yglesias's place asking why the left is so disgruntled with Democrats. I can't really help him with that excellent question, other than to say that I tend to...

By Washington Post Editors | May 24, 2010; 11:52 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (2)

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China's banking reforms

By Ezra Klein As I mentioned earlier, I spent the morning in a discussion of the Chinese banking system that included a quick overview of the sector's development in recent years, which I'm going to reproduce here simply because I...

By Ezra Klein | May 24, 2010; 11:42 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: China
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The post-gridlock court

By Dylan Matthews Charlie Savage's latest piece on Elena Kagan's views on executive power is interesting, not least for the emphasis it places on the role of congressional gridlock in her thinking: “She clearly thinks that greater presidential control over...

By Washington Post Editors | May 24, 2010; 11:27 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (1)
Tags: Elena Kagan, congress, dylan matthews, ezra klein, supreme court
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Moving the center

By Dylan Matthews David Leonhardt's column declaring the inauguration of a new progressive moment in American politics is interesting, but it somewhat oversells what Obama's done: The last 16 months seem most similar in scope to three other periods in...

By Washington Post editor | May 24, 2010; 11:15 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (3)

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Wonkbook: Democrats against spending; conference committee on C-SPAN; EPA was unprepared

Dylan Matthews is writing Wonkbook while Ezra is in China. Some congressional Democrats are opposing key spending bills that they say would drive the country deeper in debt. Meanwhile, Barney Frank is pushing for the financial reform conference committee to...

By Washington Post editor | May 24, 2010; 11:00 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Wonkbook
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All the way off

By Jonathan Bernstein One of the things that I've blogged about repeatedly is that Americans are called on to vote more often, for more things, and in many cases with fewer useful cues than are citizens of almost all other...

By Washington Post editor | May 24, 2010; 10:45 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (5)

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Unbanked America

By Ezra Klein One of my meetings today was with a quasi-employee of the megabank HSBC, who said that HSBC's strategy in recent years has been to focus on retail banking, which meant identifying areas where there'd be a lot...

By Ezra Klein | May 24, 2010; 10:32 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (3)

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Why hasn't Obama taken charge?

By Kate Sheppard This week, BP plans to take another stab at stopping the gusher in the Gulf of Mexico, after more than four weeks of trying. The company's large containment dome idea failed, and it abandoned plans to try...

By Kendra Nichols | May 24, 2010; 10:10 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (23)

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The United Corporations of America

By Ezra Klein I don't usually attempt to assign articles to writers who specialize in policing America's foreign policy for insufficient displays of muscular nationalism, but if any such writers are reading this blog and looking for something to...

By Ezra Klein | May 24, 2010; 9:39 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (11)

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The gulf spill: Size matters

BP has been getting a plenty of flak in the past week as it became clear that the company has been low-balling the amount of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. But here's what's missing from that conversation: the now-disputed 5,000-barrel-per-day figure came from the federal government, not BP.

By Washington Post editor | May 24, 2010; 8:49 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (11)

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Network News

Ezra Klein: May 23, 2010 - May 29, 2010