Unca Darrell

BUMPED / APRIL 5 / Unca D is going on sabbatical for . . .

. . . a family project. I may post occasionally over the next couple of months, but you're excused from checking back until early or mid-June. Meanwhile, a couple of parting shots:

MARCH 6 / What happens when the Fed dumps its bonds?

[THE] TIME is approaching to scale back the bond-buying spree and get ready to unwind some of the Fed's massive portfolio [of mortgage bonds and U.S. Treasuries], which now tops $3 trillion. The longer the policy lasts . . .

FEBRUARY 25 / Jack Lew's sweet unemployment contract

[THE] STORY is how Wall Street has become a get-rich-turnstile for Democratic political operatives. The terms of Mr. Lew's original employment contract with Citi included a bonus guarantee if he left the bank for . . . 

FEBRUARY 6 / Running to stay in place

A GOOD EXPLANATION of why the stock market rally isn't.

DECEMBER 11 / A case study of . . .

. . . liberal bias in news reporting at Associated Press and the Houston Chronicle.

Statutory warning. This is a long essay, not for the faint of heart, about a persistent problem in journalism: the distortion of news by the liberal-progressive bias of reporters and editors. To many of you, I suspect, this is filed with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness under self-evident truths. It's useful from time to time, however, to show exactly -- sentence-by-excruciating-sentence, word-by-painful-word -- how this bias undermines modern journalism and destroys trust in reporters' and editors' allegience to truth. So, being duly warned, please proceed, if you wish, at your own risk. 

Fish don't know they're wet and reporters don't know they're liberals. You may not believe this, but it's true enough, at least about reporters.

NOVEMBER 29 / Texas: not a death-spiral state

ELEVEN STATES are in such fiscal danger that Forbes recommends against investing there, either in houses, businesses, or municipal bonds. These states "can look forward to a rising tax burden, deteriorating state finances and an exodus of employers."

Two factors determine whether a state makes this elite list of fiscal hellholes. The first is . . .  

NOVEMBER 20 / Here's one vote in favor of . . .

. . . sequestration.

That is the name for $1.2 billion in automatic spending cuts coming January 1 because the famous super committee famously failed to agree how to cut the deficit.

Conventional wisdom says this will be a disaster. One-half of the cut will hit defense spending and the other one-half will reduce domestic spending, not including Social Security and other sacred cows, both spread over the next ten years.

Critics are nearly unanimous that the cuts will destroy civilization as we know it, by hollowing out the military and sending starving kids into the streets to trade iPhones for Cheerios.

The critics may be right, but we still ought to do it. Here's why.

NOVEMBER 16 / Yuval Levin on the election

YUVAL LEVIN, founding editor of National Affairs, is quickly emerging as one of America's most important public intellectuals. Here are snips from a pre-election essay on what was at stake in the election:

NOVEMBER 13 / Flexibility on "all of the above"

THE INTERIOR Department on Friday issued a final plan to close 1.6 million acres of federal land in the West originally slated for oil shale development.

NOVEMBER 13 / Which would you rather hold?

SHORT-TERM Obama/Geithner/Bernanke Treasury debt or a short-term bond issued by Exxon Mobil?

The better investment, says the bond market, is . . .