HOW COME WE, THE PUBLIC, DON'T GET A VOTE?

I looked up the current Board of Directors of the New York branch of the Federal Reserve and found two interesting categories of director: (1) those elected by member banks to represent the public and (2) those appointed by the Board of Governors to represent the public. In the first group, we have 3 members:

Jeffrey R. Immelt (bio) 2011 Chairman and Chief Executive Officer General Electric Company

Jeffrey B. Kindler (bio) 2012 Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Pfizer

James S. Tisch (bio) 2010 President and Chief Executive Officer Loews Corporation

THANK GOD FOR SHARRON ANGLE

The wingnuts would have made a great deal of agit-prop if she beat Sen. Harry Reid but with each passing week, we get more evidence that she's a wacko.

Group promoting Angle event: Medicare “evil” and “immoral,” Obama is a “covert hypnotist” and HIV may not cause AIDS

By Jon Ralston · August 6, 2010 · 6:56 AM
Las Vegs Sun

...she is the headliner at an event Saturday promoted by a physician's group that is far out of the mainstream. The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, which is a major promoter of the Doctors Tea Party in San Diego on Saturday, has given voice to some bizarre theories, believes the advent of Medicare in 1965 was "evil" and "immoral" and once published a piece arguing HIV may not cause AIDS. There's more, too, with the group promoting one of Angle's previously expressed theories that abortion may cause breast cancer and it also once argued the FDA is unconstitutional.

TPM has a little more about this dingbat.

IT'S HARD TO BELIEVE THIS...

(h/t Ken Hoop)

The Obama Administration has decided to provide 3,000 South Asians with IT work and that means 3,000 fewer Americans will have these jobs.

KENNETH ARROW FOR DUMMIES

In the NYT, Prof. Uwe Reinhardt is going to give us a relatively painless explanation of what Kenneth Arrow discovered about the economics of health care. In his first column, he gives an explanation of two important concepts in economics:

First, in what Professor Arrow calls the First Optimality Theorem of welfare economics, it can be shown that in this equilibrium the traded good or service is allocated among buyers in such a way that it would be impossible through any reallocation to make someone happier without making someone else less happy.

It is an allocation that economists call Pareto efficient, in honor of the Italian industrialist, economist and philosopher Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923), who first proposed this criterion.

EVEN AN AEI WINGNUT THINKS THE STIMULUS WORKED...

(h/t db'sbones on POLITICO)

The Year Ahead
By John H. Makin | AEI Online
(January 2010)

The real economy also responded to the massive stimulus but remained heavily dependent on it. In the United States, growth during the second half of 2009 probably averaged about 3 percent. Absent temporary fiscal stimulus and inventory rebuilding, which taken together added about 4 percentage points to U.S. growth, the economy would have contracted at about a 1 percent annual rate during the second half of 2009.

WHY IT WAS GOOD TO AID THE STATES

It prevented state layoffs at a time when the private sector was also laying off workers.

Unemployment, The Economy And The Chicken-and-Egg Conundrum
by Sarah McBride
Planet Money
09:16 am
August 6, 2010

Standard & Poor's chief economist David Wyss says that gradually, consumers just stop worrying about losing their jobs and little by little start spending again.

The public sector lost 202,000 jobs, as census workers were laid off and local governments made cutbacks. To a large extent, these are jobs state and local governments would have shed last year but didn't because of the federal stimulus package.

"You've extended the adjustment process," Wyss says, which he believes is better than having the blow of government and private-sector cuts all at once. "By extending it, now the government-sector cuts are coming when the private sector is starting to hire," lessening the blow, he says.

ANOTHER "LIBERAL" FACT

Remember how the wingnuts tell us that government can't create any jobs? Well, we have another expert who tells us that that is BS:

Lackluster Private Hiring Reflects Economy's Struggles

by NPR Staff and Wires
August 6, 2010

"We've definitely seen a one, two month — in some cases three month — drop in the economic data," Brian Wesbury, chief economist at First Trust in Chicago, told NPR.

Conversely, financial firms shed 17,000 workers and construction companies cut 11,000 jobs — the third straight month of losses.

"We just lost government support for the housing market and that can cost us in the construction area … and in finance because of mortgage brokers," Wesbury said.

A LITTLE MORE ON ROMER

Peter Orszag may have been the stumbling block, according to POLITICO:

In fact, her main enemy within the administration was Orszag, a deficit hawk who clashed with her stimulus advocacy, according to people familiar with the situation.

WHAT DO THE ARABS THINK?

Zogby and the University of Maryland have been polling Middle East attitudes for several years and this year’s poll surveyed 3,976 people in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Jordan, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates, during the period of June 29–July 20, 2010.

Here is just one depressing result:

WHAT IS IT WITH CONSERVATIVES AND TAXES?

Russell Kirk was a reasonable conservative of the old school (e.g., he didn't want an American Empire) and Prof. Bainbridge linked to a talk Kirk gave at the Heritage Foundation in early 1991. This was just about 2 years before Pres. Clinton raised taxes and we had the greatest post-War expansion in American history yet Kirk seems obsessed with taxation:

Oppressive Taxation. With respect to a sharp increase in the level of taxes, it seems as if the Bush Administration really does not understand the principle of diminishing returns, or know the history of the consequences of excessive taxation. When computing our federal income tax very recently, my wife and I discovered that more than half our gross income is taken in taxation -- federal income tax; Social Security taxes; state income taxes; village, township, and county taxes, school property tax; sales taxes. And we are not of the number of Franklin Roosevelt's "malefactors of great wealth." We are in the process of educating four young daughters, paying off mortgages, trying to save something for one's declining years -- I, being seventy-two years of age already -- and contributing to charitable causes. Yet we are better off than many taxpayers. What straw will break the camel's back?

A state that annually exacts in taxes half of a citizen's income is more oppressive, financially, than the despotisms of old. In the ancient monarchies of China, a tax load of more than ten percent would have been thought unjust. Excessive taxation is a major cause of the decline and fall of great states: so writes C. Northcote Parkinson, the author of Parkinson's Law, in his last book.

"Taxation, taken to the limit and beyond, has always been a sign of decadence and a prelude to disaster," as Parkinson puts it. "For government expenditure is the chief cause of inflation and is also the means of government interference in commercial, industrial, and social life. Where evil has been averted it has normally been from lack of funds. Where evil has been done it was usually because the perpetrators had money to spend."

THIS SEEMS TO BE A SHAME

Christina Romer, chairwoman of Pres. Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, has decided to resign. She seems to have been the only one who was correct about how big the stimulus needed to be:

”Romer had run simulations of the effects of stimulus packages of varying sizes: six hundred billion dollars, eight hundred billion dollars, and $1.2 trillion. The best estimate for the output gap was some two trillion dollars over 2009 and 2010. Because of the multiplier effect, filling that gap didn’t require two trillion dollars of government spending, but Romer’s analysis, deeply informed by her work on the Depression, suggested that the package should probably be more than $1.2 trillion. The memo to Obama, however, detailed only two packages: a five-hundred-and-fifty-billion-dollar stimulus and an eight-hundred-and-ninety-billion-dollar stimulus. Summers did not include Romer’s $1.2-trillion projection. The memo argued that the stimulus should not be used to fill the entire output gap; rather, it was “an insurance package against catastrophic failure.” At the meeting, according to one participant, “there was no serious discussion to going above a trillion dollars."

It seems that Larry Summers should leave instead of Romer. That may be too harsh a judgment on the Obama Administration because of what outgoing OMB head Peter Orszag said:

“I can personally guarantee you there was a 0.000 probability that it could have been any substantially larger.” That decision, he later conceded, was due to political imperatives that had nothing to do with economic ones.

I NEED TO LOOK INTO THIS FUNDIE PAC

For one, I'd like to know how it gets its money.

AP Exclusive: No gay adoptions, says GOP's Angle
Aug 5 09:05 PM US/Eastern
By MICHAEL R. BLOOD
AP Political Writer

In the questionnaire, submitted to the Washington-based Government is not God political committee, Angle said she would vote in Congress to prohibit abortion "in all cases," and considers a fetus a person under the Constitution.

The Washington-based group's website says it supports candidates who oppose abortion rights and "stand firmly against the unbiblical welfare state that is destroying the spiritual and economic greatness of our nation."

HOW KRAZY IS THE GOP?

When the House leader sounds just like Glenn Beck, your party has a serious problem.

THE PROP. 8 DECISION

The wingers are whining that an unelected judge overturned the "will of the people" but don't seem to realize that the Constitution IS the will of the people.

ATROS MAKES AMENDS :-)

He used to post the worst music videos but in the last year or so, he's gotten a lot better. Here's the Youtube link to Gould playing the aria and 1st seven variations from Goldberg. There are mode goodies in the "Related" links.

SHARRON ANGLE PLAYED THE FUNDIE CARD

(h/t Memeorandum)

Last April she gave an interview to a Fundie radio show and Jon Ralston of the Las Vegas Sun has the transcript and the audio file. Here are a few snippets I liked:

Wiles: Sharron, why did you get in the race to defeat the biggest Democrat in the U.S. Senate, the majority leader of the entire Senate? Why did you get into this race?

Angle: We’re at war in this country – for our freedom, our culture, for our liberty, our Constitution, and we need a true, battle-tested, proven, Constitutional conservative to take out Harry Reid.

The same thing stands for those who love our Second Amendment. Harry Reid now has the NRA saying, “Thank Harry Reid for all his pro-gun votes.” Well, I have the GOA endorsement and we know that once again those Supreme Court judges would take away our right to keep and bear arms.

You know, this is a war of ideology, a war of thoughts and of faith. And we need people to really stand for faith and trust, not hope and change.

MARK LEVIN + SARAH PALIN == FAIL

Both of these freakshows endorsed one of their own kind. From ABC's The Note:

Palin-backed Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., narrowly lost the Republican Senate primary to Rep. Jerry Moran, who had the support of another prominent endorser, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-SC. In late June, Palin announced support for Tiahrt in a Facebook note, her preferred medium for endorsements, calling him a “Commonsense Conservative.”

UPDATE: Mother Jones reports that Hannity, Rove and Phyllis Schlaffly also supported Tiahrt.

HITLER RODE A BICYCLE!!!

Alternate title: Beckism spreads! A candidate from mayor employs Beck's the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon "analytic" tool to come to this conclusion. (h/t Atrios)

Bike agenda spins cities toward U.N. control, Maes warns
By Christopher N. Osher
The Denver Post
Posted: 08/04/2010 01:00:00 AM MDT
Updated: 08/04/2010 10:59:15 AM MDT

Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes is warning voters that Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper's policies, particularly his efforts to boost bike riding, are "converting Denver into a United Nations community."

Maes said in a later interview that he was referring to Denver's membership in the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, an international association that promotes sustainable development and has attracted the membership of more than 1,200 communities, 600 of which are in the United States.

"Some would argue this document that mayors have signed is contradictory to our own Constitution," Maes said.

MORE ON THE "GREAT" FREDO ECONOMY

I noted below that the Bush tax cuts did not lead to an increase in Federal tax revenue, contrary to the predictions of supply-side economics (SSE). SSE also predicts that lower personal tax rates will lead to a higher percentage of people working and that's also a FAIL.

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Table A-1

Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey

Series Id:           LNS11300000
Seasonally Adjusted
Series title:        (Seas) Labor Force Participation Rate
Labor force status:  Civilian labor force participation rate
Type of data:        Percent or rate
Age:                 16 years and over

WILL THE WAR CONS ATTACK THE GENERAL?

During the Gen. McChrystal fuss, I recall several radio gasbags complaining that the rules of engagement in Afghanistan were far too restrictive and they blamed Pres. Obama for them.

Petraeus issues new rules to avoid civilian casualties: NATO
Aug 4 08:25 AM US/Eastern
by Claire Truscott Claire Truscott
AFP

KABUL (AFP) – General David Petraeus has issued new rules to troops in Afghanistan telling them to "redouble" efforts to avoid civilian deaths, seen as a crucial issue in winning the increasingly unpopular war.

"We must continue -- indeed, redouble -- our efforts to reduce the loss of innocent civilian life to an absolute minimum. Every Afghan civilian death diminishes our cause," he said in the directive released by NATO on Wednesday.

WELL, ONE CIVIL SUIT WORKED

There was so much corruption among the MOTU that I thought there would be many more cases like this one.

Countrywide settlement pays fraction to investors
Aug 3 05:33 PM US/Eastern
By ALAN ZIBEL
AP Real Estate Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Former shareholders of fallen mortgage giant Countrywide Financial Corp. are in line to recoup a fraction of their investments now that a Los Angeles judge has approved a settlement worth more than $600 million settlement.

The agreement stands to return about 40 cents per share of Countrywide's common stock, before legal fees and expenses. Consider that the stock peaked at $45 a share in February 2007, before the financial crisis. So an investor who held 100 shares could bank on receiving $40 for an investment that was once worth $4,500.

Several New York pension funds who served as lead plaintiffs alleged that Countrywide hid how risky its business had become during the housing market's boom years. Calabasas, Calif.-based Countrywide was once the nation's largest mortgage lender.

MUST HAVE BEEN A TIME-DELAY

Back in May, Glenn Beck attacked a Jewish organization because it didn't agree with his "social justice equals Stalinism" agit-prop. Many other Jewish leaders & organizations complained to FAUX and apparently were taken seriously.

BAGGERS FOR IMPEACHMENT

The TeaParty.Org (Dale Robertson) has jumped on the impeachment bandwagon in its newest e-mail:

V. Impeach Obama: Clean the DC Outhouse

Impeachment details are previously described here: article 1; article 2. But no specific crime need be proved of Obama, if he's found undermining the Republic. Countless stories detail Barack's absolutely astounding number of mistakes and imbecilic decisions. But simply ponder - without government defense of private property, we are doomed to drift into socialism, and then lose our liberties. Historically speaking, no other outcome is possible. For this reason alone, Obama must be impeached ASAP.

Here's a screen capture:

MORE ON PRES. FREDO'S TAX CUTS

Despite the supply-side fantasy, the Bush tax cuts did not work any magic on the economy. In fact, it wasn't until 2006 that personal Federal income taxes exceeded their 2000 total.

NOTE: All dollar amounts in constant FY 2000 dollars
SOURCE

THERE ARE SECONDARY GAINS TO BE GOTTEN FROM OTHER PEOPLE'S IGNORANCE

For example, I wouldn't have read about the Progressive Era, American socialism and Pres. Woodrow Wilson were it not for Glenn Beck's preposterous claims. Today on this POLITICO thread, a conservative poster wrote "Oh, by the way, be sure and tell Pat Buchannan that he supported the Iraq War."

A Google later, I found Pat Buchanan's anti-Iraq War essay in the March 24, 2003 issue of The American Conservative. (PDF here)

Here's the killer paragraph:

We charge that a cabal of polemicists and public officials seek to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America’s interests. We charge them with colluding with Israel to ignite those wars and destroy the Oslo Accords. We charge them with deliberately damaging U.S. relations with every state in the Arab world that defies Israel or supports the Palestinian people’s right to a homeland of their own. We charge that they have alienated friends and allies all over the Islamic and Western world through their arrogance, hubris, and bellicosity.

GLENN BECK ISN'T THE ONLY KRAZY

Maybe BooBoo wants to run for a higher office.

AZ ‘politician turned sheriff’ calls US government ‘our enemy’
By Ron Brynaert
Monday, August 2nd, 2010 -- 11:19 am
RAW STORY

On Monday morning, Sheriff Babeu made the big time. Top conservative website The Drudge Report made its top banner an interview by CNSNews: 'AZ SHERIFF: 'OUR OWN GOVENMENT HAS BECOME OUR ENEMY.'" CNSNews has had trouble loading Monday morning because of the massive traffic surge.

OK, WHAT'S THE STORY???

(h/t Susie Madrak at Crooks & Liars)

The millionaires are back and productivity is up, so where are the jobs? (Graph from www.bls.gov )

SOMETHING TO SAVE FOR LATER

On Sunday, Billy Cunningham had Joseph Farah (WND) on again to talk about "problems" with Pres. Obama's birth, AGAIN. Billy has been saying for months that he personally thinks Pres. Obama was born in Hawaii but he persists in giving Farah air time to spout his birther nonsense.

I also learned that WND is sponsoring something like a Bagger/Birther/Tenther conference in mid-September. Right now, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Krazies) is one of ther featured speakers.

Here's a screen grab in case the site vanishes.

WHY THE BAGGERS HATE MOZART

(I couldn't resist)

From POLITICO:

And some tea party allies in Washington also are skeptical. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) warned that the caucus may be seen as trying to “co-opt” the movement and questioned the motivations of its members, while some of his colleagues have kept their distance for fear of being branded as extremists.

“I’m 100 percent pro-tea party, but this is not the right thing to do,” said Chaffetz, who declined to join the caucus.

“Structure and formality are the exact opposite of what the tea party is, and if there is an attempt to put structure and formality around it, or to co-opt it by Washington, D.C., it’s going to take away from the free-flowing nature of the true tea party movement,” Chaffetz told POLITICO. “If any one person tries to become the head of it, it will lose its way.”

WILL CARL CAMERON BE REPRIMANDED?

(h/t Heather at Crooks & Liars)

Even FAUX News is unwilling to hide the fact that Sharron Angle, Harry Reid's challenger, is an extremist:

Cameron: What precisely she’s advocated; phasing out Social Security and Medicare, withdrawing from the United Nations, abolishing the EPA and much of the tax code and banning all abortions. But it’s not just the positions that Angle has taken, it’s how she’s defended them. She suggested that entitlement programs “spoiled our citizenry”, that it may be part of God’s plan that rape victims get pregnant and to some she even seems to sanction armed insurrection, a “Second Amendment remedy” is what she called it, if Harry Reid isn’t beaten at the ballot box.

REP. CANTOR HAS COMPLETED THE FIRST STEP...

only 11 more to go! Just to be fair, I do recall reading in (I think) Paul O'Neill's book that tax breaks take 1 to 2 years to have an effect.

Rep. Cantor Reluctantly Admits Extending Bush Tax Cuts Will Increase Deficits
4 hours and 9 minutes ago — Matt Finkelstein

GUTHRIE: ...will you just simply acknowledge that passing these tax cuts worsens the budget deficit problem? I mean, you can't deny that, right?

CANTOR: Savannah, let's look at it through the prism of the working families who are seeking jobs and the small businesspeople who are creating them. It's not — it's not a tax cut they're looking for, they don't want a tax hike.

GUTHRIE: But that wasn't my question. [...]

GUTHRIE: I just was wondering if you had a — if you had any dispute with the notion that it does exacerbate the deficit picture.

CANTOR: What I — what I said in the beginning is, um, if you have less revenues coming into the federal government, and more expenditures, what does that add up to? Certainly you're gonna dig the hole deeper. But you also have to understand, if the priority is to get people back to work, is to start growing this economy again, uh, then you don't wanna make it more expensive for job creators. You don't wanna hike their taxes so that they won't hire people. I mean, that's the fundamental decision here. Do you wanna make it more expensive for small businesspeople right now, and no, I don't think you do.

LIMBAUGH IS LAME

Today, somehow a caller got through who Fats couldn't answer. The caller said that just as Limbaugh has a lawyer to represent him in his work negotiations, normal workers need to rely on a union. Fats was done from that point on and tried to maintain that (1) he was an independent contractor and (2) he was a business partner. Now, it may be possible to be both at the same time but Fats needed to explain how.

I THINK I GET REP. BOEHNER'S (R) LOGIC

A few years ago I was in a online debate with a conservative about whether or not some claim was true. In the end, the conservative wrote that true or false would be decided by the election and I think that's what Boehner means in this exchange captured by Faiz Shakir at Think Progress:

WALLACE: Congressman — a number of top economists say what we need is more economic stimulus.

BOEHNER: Well, I don’t need to see GDP numbers or to listen to economists. All I need to do is listen to the American people, because they’ve been asking the question now for 18 months, “where are the jobs?”

All that really matters is getting the rubes to vote GOP.

THIS IS WHAT WINGNUTS DESCRIBE AS "THEFT"

Bob Cesca got this graph from the Wall Street Journal:

A LITTLE MORE ON KLINGHOFFER

He refers to Richard Weaver's 1948 book, "Ideas Have Consequences," and highlights this part:

Weaver observed: "If we feel that creation does not express purpose, it is impossible to find an authorization for purpose in our lives." A life without real purpose is likely to be anxious, restless, prone to bitterness and suspicion. The goal of conservatism was to restore to men and women a metaphysical dream that allows for ultimate meaning in our existence.

This seems to turn politics into a religious struggle but it shouldn't be:

The man who is concerned for the welfare of his soul and the salvation of the souls of others does not seek these aims along the path of politics. Politics has quite different goals, which can only be achieved by force.

Max Weber, Politics as Vocation, 1919.

The full text of Weber's essay can be found here.

UPDATE: In addition to being communists, the early Anabaptists also recognized a strict division between religion and politics:

VI. We are agreed as follows concerning the sword: ...

Finally it will be observed that it is not appropriate for a Christian to serve as a magistrate because of these points: The government magistracy is according to the flesh, but the Christian's is according to the Spirit; their houses and dwelling remain in this world, but the Christian's are in heaven; their citizenship is in this world, but the Christian's citizenship is in heaven; the weapons of their conflict and war are carnal and against the flesh only, but the Christian's weapons are spiritual, against the fortification of the devil. The worldlings are armed with steel and iron, but the Christians are armed with the armor of God, with truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation and the Word of God.

From "The Seven Articles of Schleitheim
Canton Schaffhausen, Switzerland,
February 24, 1527 "

REMEMBER ALL THE WINGNUTS WHINING ABOUT POLAND?

(h/t Raw Story)

I recall that some of them thought that Pres. Obama's decision to rely on the AEGIS system instead of Bush's Star Wars system was close to treason. Now it seems that Pres. Obama made the correct decision:

U.S. nears key step in European defense shield against Iranian missiles
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 1, 2010

The U.S. military is on the verge of activating a partial missile shield over southern Europe, part of an intensifying global effort to build defenses against Iranian missiles amid a deepening impasse over the country's nuclear ambitions.

In September, Obama announced that he was changing Bush's approach. Instead of abandoning the idea, he directed the Pentagon to construct a far more extensive and flexible missile defense system in Europe that will be built in phases between now and 2020.

The first phase officially becomes operational next year. Aegis ships, armed with dozens of SM-3 missile interceptors, will patrol the Mediterranean and Black seas and link up with the high-power radar planned for southern Europe.

"If Iran were actually to launch a missile attack on Europe, it wouldn't be just one or two missiles, or a handful," Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said at a congressional hearing in June. "It would more likely be a salvo kind of attack, where you would be dealing potentially with scores or even hundreds of missiles."

Such an attack could have "rapidly overwhelmed" the Bush missile defense shield for Europe, Army Lt. Gen. Patrick J. O'Reilly, director of the Defense Department's Missile Defense Agency, said in an interview.

As a result, the Obama administration has plans to nearly double its number of Aegis ships with ballistic missile defenses, to 38 by 2015. ... Until last year, the Pentagon had thought an arsenal of 147 SM-3s would be sufficient for its missile defenses worldwide. Now, the Obama administration is looking to nearly triple that number, to 436, by 2015.

WHO'S THE REAL KRAZY?

A guy who specializes in agit-prop, like Breitbart, or a guy who thinks evolutionary biology, geology, chemistry and physics are terribly wrong, like David Klinghoffer?

SUDDENLY, WE NEED THE RICH?

Back on July 16th, the NY Times ran an article that praised the affluent - "The economic recovery has been helped in large part by the spending of the most affluent." and today, the AP chimes in:

As spending by wealthy weakens, so does economy
Aug 1 02:09 PM US/Eastern
By JEANNINE AVERSA
AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Wealthy Americans aren't spending so freely anymore. And the rest of us are feeling the squeeze.

The question is whether the rich will cut back so much as to tip the economy back into recession—or if they will spend at least enough to sustain the recovery.

Think of the wealthy as the main engine of the economy: When they buy more, the economy hums. When they cut back, it sputters. The rest of us mainly go along for the ride.

UPDATE: William Gale in the WaPo has a nice push-back against this return of "trickle down economics."

UPDATE II: David Stockman, Reagan's OMB director, trashes GOP economic policies in the NYT.