Outside the Beltway

November’s Jobs Report was stronger than expected, but there are several caveats to keep in mind.

Economic growth in the first quarter wasn’t as bad as first estimated, but it still wasn’t very good. And the future is unclear at best.

Gross Domestic Product grew at a sluggish 1.5% in the just-concluded Third Quarter, calling the Federal Reserve’s apparent plan to raise interest rates at some point even further into question.

A knowledgeable observer has a dim forecast.

Wall Street Journal was looking hard for a story.

About 8.1 percent of U.S. workers have commutes of 60 minutes or longer and nearly 600,000 have “megacommutes” of at least 90 minutes and 50 miles.

The Nanoo Nanoo Edition OTB Caption Contest^TM is now over.

The speech did exactly what it was supposed to do: kick off Obama’s re-election campaign while disguised as a call for unity.

Did Congress cause the mortgage crisis by mandating loans to poor people? No.

Social Security outlays are exceeding its income. Is that really a problem?

Increasing taxes on the rich may be a fiscal policy worth talking about, but it won’t make the poor richer.

Have Republicans been co-opted by the Big Government they claim to hate?

Is it time to just admit that the good old days are over?

Some on the right are giving Occupy Wall Street and The 99%’ers a second look.

Ronald Reagan’s chief economist has a radical plan for solving the housing crisis.

With the advantage of hindsight, it’s clear that more creative strategies were needed. But they probably couldn’t have been passed.

The Occupy Wall Street protests look more like a temper tantrum than a substantive protest movement.

Economists are beginning to wonder if this very slow economic recovery isn’t permanently altering the landscape.

Measuring our progress a decade after the 9/11 attacks

Taking an initial look into the Texas economy.

Any politician telling you that solving our problems will be easy is lying to you.

Don’t worry be happy!

The housing market has changed over the past five years, and that’s a good thing.

Real Estate prices continue to fall, but where are the buyers? Maybe they’re acting sane this time.

Three years later, there are no signs that the real estate market is anywhere close to recovering.

An increasing number of bright observers are questioning the notion that everyone needs to go to college.

Is our current economic situation the result of massive government intervention? The Randians certainly think so.

The U.S. housing market is a long way from the glory days of the housing bubble, and that’s a good thing.

After several months of bad housing sales, politicians in Washington are starting to talk about bringing back one of the worst public policy programs of the last two years.

For many reasons, the housing market is unlikely to fully recover for the foreseeable future.

The housing market that existed from the late 1990s until 2007/08 was an historical anomaly, and anyone expecting a return to those days is fooling themselves.

Lenders and Borrowers seem poised to make the same mistakes that brought about the last Housing Bubble all over again.

If lawyers and MBAs don’t understand their mortgage documents, what chance do the rest of us have?

Most research shows that unemployment benefits/insurance increases the duration of unemployment.

Those with million dollar plus mortgages are defaulting at almost twice the rate on those smaller loans. Are the rich more ruthless?

Age-adjusted unemployment is at its worst in more than a quarter century