Yesterday, the Federal Open Markets Committee decided, under the guidance of chairman Ben Bernanke, to engage in a new round of quantitative easing (open market purchases of mortgage backed securities at a rate of $40 billion per month for as long as necessary) and also promised to keep interest rates at extraordinarily low levels through 2015.  I'd remind people, by the way, that the Fed could hike rates 200 basis points and still claim to be at historically very low levels (we'd be just over 2 percent).

The Internet is great, in part, because it reminds you that some of the old arguing rules from high school are useful in real life.  If I call you Hitler for disagreeing with me, I am wrong.  Because you are really Pol Pot.

Last night, I was underwhelmed by Obama's speech but in the light of morning I think I was perhaps expecting a little too much, given the context of an extremely effective and well put together convention.  He is the president, not a cheerleader and he's trying to defend his program while showing how it will play out if he's given more time.

Tonight, the most recent two-term Democratic president will address the party’s convention to make the case for Barack Obama’s re-election.  If everything works out, Obama will face a second term that will resemble Bill Clinton’s, where the President faced a powerful opposition party determined to undermine him.

Every so often, somebody tells the story of Henry Ford, friend of the working man.  You see, he paid his workers a higher wage, helping to transform a population of Detroit immigrants into part of a mass affluent American middle class that supported America's economic growth for the better part of the 20th century.

Since David Brooks made a funny, the universe has been out of balance.  Ross Douthat, Brooks' mini-me conservative in The New York Times op-ed land, has righted the balance with a perfectly ridiculous column about Ann Romney's convention speech.

Niall Ferguson wrote a Newsweek cover story called "Hit the Road, Barack" and now seems surprised that people are picking over the carcass.  This is, of course, ridiculous.  Newsweek editor Tina Brown very often chooses stories specifically to inspire reaction.  There's nothing wrong with that, from where I stand.  It's okay to be provocative on purpose.  Though this one seems as half baked as when Forbes, my alma mater, published Dinesh D'Souza's musings on Barack Obama's Kenyan socialism.

Frank Bruni wrote a pretty good column today about a new, anti-teacher's union movie coming out, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal called "Won't Back Down," about a mother who stands up to the entrenched interests who run her failing local school district.  Bruni also writes about the growing rift between Democrats and teachers unions and the growing public upset at unionized teachers.  Bruni doesn't wind up anti-union, but his sympathies are definitely strained.

One thing I missed in the "Mitt Romney never pays less than 13% in taxes" story is his explanation that if you add in his charitable donations, he's paid north of 20% a year.  I have no problem with the federal government's decision to encourage charitable giving by offering people tax deductions.  But Romney's argument here is ridiculous and, taken to the extreme, dangerous.

Taxes and charitable donations are not the same.

I'm sure we all have a lot to snark.  I mean, "to say."  Figured I'd make a place for it.

I'll start.

What a wuss!

Most people will never get to be governor of any state and even fewer will get a term as governor of Massachusetts.  Were I to ever accomplish something of that magnitude, I would not let a bunch of freaks in tricorner hats force me to apologize for the best things I did during that time.  Not even in pursuit of a bigger goal.  A human has to draw the line somewhere.

I just read David Denby's lukewarm review of Spike Lee's Red Hook Summer (subscription required) in which Denby calls the movie a failure but praises Lee as being one of the few filmmakers out there who would ask the kind of question about faith that he posed in the movie.  I haven't seen the movie and don't know that I will.  I don't watch every Spike Lee Joint the way I watch every movie made by Woody Allen.  But I do pay attention to him and some of his earlier films, especiall

I know, I can't quit Thomas Friedman.  But when a below average writer achieves fame and fortune while so many greater talents deal in obscurity, it's annoying.  Particularly when the below average writer makes arguments like "Average Is Over," where he accuses American politicians and citizens of not being up to the task of global competition.
 

What a four years it's been.  Back in 2008, after two terms of George W. Bush, I felt overtaken by an impulse to want to upend the entire system and to undo the wrongs of the Aught decade.  Hillary Clinton seemed to me to be the pugilist needed to egt the job done but when it became clear that she would not be selected, I learned to start liking Obama.  Clinton apparently came to the same conclusion and she has been one of the most effective members of her administration.