Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Larry Summers: genius economist, failure at Psychology 101

by New Deal democrat Larry Summers: genius economist, failure at Psychology 101 One of my recurring themes is how macroeconomic theory, no matter how elegant mathematically, consistently errs because it fails to take into account basic psychology — i.e., how the human animal actually works. A big component of this failure is that humans, like […]

Fool me once again?

From the Roosevelt Institute comes this graphic on the overall reality of macro policies: The Republicans’ underlying assumption—that corporations invest more and create more jobs only when they are relieved of burdensome tax rates—is false. American businesses already enjoy a historically low cost of capital, and they have more than enough cash on hand to […]

Saint Janet Yellen: The Best Fed Chair Ever?

by Barkley Rosser  (originally published at Econospeak) Saint Janet Yellen: The Best Fed Chair Ever? OK, so the immediate reaction of many to this title might be to laugh, but I challenge anybody reading this to name another Fed Chair who was clearly better than she is.  I do not think you can.  However, one […]

A thought for Sunday: of heartlessness, confidence and conviction

by New Deal democrat A thought for Sunday: of heartlessness, confidence and conviction First of all, let me join in full in the following from Calculated Risk: These are not normal times, and I can’t just post economic data and remain silent on other issues. Mr. Trump’s executive order is un-American, not Christian, and hopefully […]

Paul Ryan Can Not Take the Truth So He Hides It with Legislation

Paul Ryan and other House Republicans voted along party lines “Adopting rules for the One Hundred Fifteenth Congress.” The vote was 234 Yeas to 193 Nays. Three Republicans voted with Democrats to block the new rules for the 115th Congress. No big deal, right? and the New Rules passed. As many of you probably know, […]

Equality in Retirement

Sarah Anderson and Scott Klinger of the Institute of Policy Studies released “Tale of Two Retirements”, a study discussing how well CEOs will retire in comparison to the low and middle income citizens who only have 401ks and Social Security to retire on in the US and what President-Elect Trump’s actions will do to CEO […]

Michigan Lame Duck Legislature

The Republican controlled House and Senate has been largely busy passing bills in the few days left in 2016. This particular one caught my eye. Michigan had put in place a new Unemployment System (Michigan Data Automated System or MiDAS) to help in detecting unemployment fraud. With the passage of Senate Bill 1008 by the […]