• Chart of the Day: Banking Compensation 15 Feb 2010
• Demographics and the Anatomy of International Capital Flows 11 Apr 2010
• Paul Davidson: Reforming the world’s international money 8 Jan 2009

• Amazon: Privacy Concerns, Digital Music Lockers and Pandora’s Box 30 Mar 2011
• Apple: Can it stop the Amazon menace? 28 Sep 2011
• Ghost Town Detroit 12 Jun 2010

• Key Passages of Osborne’s Austerity Budget 22 Jun 2010
• Video: Britain’s Austerity Budget 21 Oct 2010
• German budget austerity requirements divide EU summit 28 Oct 2010

• Chart of the day: Dow Jones vs. Treasuries 4 Jun 2008

• Debt Ceiling Deal: All cuts, no taxes 2 Aug 2011
• Italians rally around Berlusconi after the Merkozy smirk 24 Oct 2011
• Video: Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi punched in the face 13 Dec 2009

• John McCain has poor judgment, but Palin is working out quite well 9 Sep 2008
• Chart of the day: US Federal Deficit 23 May 2008
• Chart of the day: US Federal government spending 25 Jun 2008

• State and local governments: budget cuts likely 18 Mar 2008
• Spanish local governments struggling with bust 19 May 2008
• Links: 2010-04-07 – more on local governments in Riga and Detroit 7 Apr 2010

• Chart of the day: social security and medicare 24 Jun 2008
• Obama offers up Social Security cuts 6 Jul 2011
• Means of deficit reduction: Medicare and Social Security 16 Jun 2009

• Pension execs connect pension problems to hiring 29 Dec 2009
• Lehman pension shortfall is a foreshadowing 23 Sep 2008
• Divorcing and re-marrying to collect a pension 20 Oct 2009

• Chart of the Day: Enormous US Jobs Deficit 8 Jul 2011
• The jobs crisis is not just about demand 13 Jun 2011
• Chart of the Day: Depth and duration of jobs crisis 30 Jun 2011

• Making Money from Municipal Waste 10 Sep 2010
• The Exponentiality of Municipal Costs (and Some Advice for Endowments and Foundations) 14 Mar 2011
• Buyers Beware: Municipal Bond Prices Don’t Reflect Financial Stress 13 Jun 2010

• Obama’s Debt Ceiling Doubletalk 12 Jul 2011
• Debt Ceiling: No Chance of US default 19 May 2011
• Debt Ceiling Breached 16 May 2011

• Debt Ceiling Showdown Coming 12 Apr 2011
• Debt Ceiling: No Chance of US default 19 May 2011
• Debt Ceiling Breached 16 May 2011

• Chart of the day: social security and medicare 24 Jun 2008
• Means of deficit reduction: Medicare and Social Security 16 Jun 2009
• Homeland Security Control 19 Jul 2010

• Can The US. Afford Its Present Deficit Spending? 8 Mar 2011
• More thoughts on out of control deficit spending 9 Mar 2011
• The Moral Imperative for Deficit Cutting 22 Feb 2011

• Citibank Belgium to pay ‘duped’ savers 128mn for bad Lehman deal 24 Oct 2009

• Bill Gross: Sell equities and buy Treasuries 21 Sep 2009
• Bill Gross: Devil’s Bargain 2 Feb 2011
• Bill Gross: Deficit Hawk, Bond Vigilante 5 Jan 2011

• Kyle Bass: At municipal level, it’s “open season for defaults” 17 Feb 2011
• Municipal Pathologies Come to a Head 7 Jul 2010
• One Half of the Municipal Picture 26 Jan 2011

• Chinese inflation, monetary policy and the dollar peg 18 Feb 2011
• Andy Xie: Chinese monetary policy has to be tightened 4 Feb 2010
• Grading Obama’s economic policy after one year 20 Jan 2010

• Initial Thoughts on the Obama Budget 14 Feb 2011
• Is Military Spending The Third Rail Of Budget Cutting? 6 Jul 2010
• Economics 101 on government budget deficits 13 May 2010

I was on the BBC this morning talking about the Obama FY 2012 budget proposal. Here's what I said and what I think about the proposal so far (If I get the video, I will post). This post will be more about the political tactics and positioning than about advocating a specific policy course since the budget and the framing of its objectives is a purely political process. I will give some broad strokes on the advocacy front, however.

The Obama Agenda

Clearly, President Obama is in full re-election mode now – and that means everything he does from here on out will be done with an eye to how these policy moves will be perceived in a 2012 general election. The Obama budget shows a lot more budget cutting than the President announced during the State of the Union address last month. This is probably by design because the President wants to exceed expectations on the deficit cutting front to paint himself as fiscally responsible in his efforts to beat back the Republicans efforts to paint him as a tax & spend liberal.

• Double Dip Recession and the Obama 2011 Budget 4 Feb 2010
• Key Passages of Osborne’s Austerity Budget 22 Jun 2010
• Economics 101 on government budget deficits 13 May 2010

• Bill Gross: Fed on hold through 2010 13 Nov 2009
• Bill Gross: Sell equities and buy Treasuries 21 Sep 2009
• Bill Gross: Deficit Hawk, Bond Vigilante 5 Jan 2011

• Chrysler: bulls make money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered 30 Apr 2009
• Memo to Greece: Make war not love with Goldman Sachs 22 Feb 2010

• Letterman’s Top 10 George Bush moments 18 Dec 2008
• George Bush recounts his worst mistakes 12 Jan 2009
• Bush job approval is now only 19% 22 Sep 2008

• Greece gets the green light, but will it all work? 6 Feb 2010

• Edward Harrison On the Edge With Max Keiser Again 3 Jun 2010
• Steve Keen: On the Edge with Max Keiser 21 Sep 2009
• Edward Harrison On the Edge with Max Keiser 18 Dec 2009

• Chart of the day: US federal spending and receipts 29 Jun 2008

• The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease 26 Feb 2010
• Spain: consumption drop four times as much as in ‘93 20 Aug 2009
• The Fall Street Bear Index 11 Jan 2010

• News on the pensions bailout and other links 28 May 2010
• Pensions: $400 billion hole to reduce U.S. corporate earnings 7 Jan 2009
• Waiting For Something To Turn Up: Europe’s Looming Pensions-based Sovereign Debt Crisis 16 Mar 2010

• The Retirement Lottery 2 Mar 2010
• Mauboussin on Equities And Retirement Investment Strategy 21 Jul 2010
• Stat of the Day: Table of euro-zone debt and deficits 6 May 2010

• California: Obama says no to aid 16 Jun 2009
• California closed for business 9 Feb 2009
• California is to begin handing out IOUs tomorrow 30 Jun 2009

• The Retirement Lottery 2 Mar 2010
• Michael Mauboussin on investor psychology 25 Mar 2010
• Sell equities 17 Sep 2009

• Chrysler: bulls make money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered 30 Apr 2009