For the last several years there has been a conservative, libertarian meme that the drop in the savings rate did not matter because the growth in the value of peoples homes substituted for savings.Even if this was good economics to begin with and did not ignore the point that wealth is a stock and savings […]

Hat tip to CoRev Will I Live to see 80? Here’s something to think about.I recently picked a new primary care doctor. After two visits and exhaustive lab tests, he said I was doing ‘fairly well’ for my age.A little concerned about that comment, I couldn’t resist asking him, ‘Do you think I’ll live to […]

Responding to EconomistMom, he ends his breakdown of flows with: Aiming for a balanced unified deficit over the business cycle would, I think, be a good thing economically–but I really do not see how we could possibly get there. Apparently, spending eight years Serbing the budget has worked. As the current Administration surely knew it […]

by reader Jack Diogene’s Lantern: Can We Shed Some Light On the Issue Angry Bear has had a long series of conversations regarding the issueof Social Security and the projections concerning its long term financial viability. The many threads which focus on this issue have been initiated, for the most part, by postings by Bruce […]

These are direct quotes from comments and testimony on this post. Evening news segment: TODAY ON CAPITOL HILL [roll tape] Senator Sammmy: “Ladies and gentlemen, this op-ed in my hands says that the USGS has released a new exploratory study indicating that the Artic region may hold 90 billion barrels of crude oil. And a […]

My Loyal Reader sends this link, with this pull quote: “They had four major and respected law firms advising them, as well as Lazard,” said Markel. “And all of them, all of them were advising the board that there was zero value in a bankruptcy for shareholders as well as losses to creditors.” When are […]

I wrote something about crude oil, inventories and contango below and there were 57 comments including one, from Aaron which refered to this post in the future indicative. A lot of the discussion is Krugman pro and con (mostly con). I think I will review my take on his arguments here as an introduction. I […]

from ataxingmatter Should Congress make the Bush Tax Cuts Permanent? Back in April, the Joint Economic Committee put out a press release and report on the Bush Tax cuts. We are now a few months closer to the election, and seeing increasing pressure from Republicans in Congress to make the Bush tax cuts permanent. It’s […]

In the grand tradition of “pulled from comments,” I’m pulling this one—from Brad DeLong’s blog, in response to this post: …Manzi does not seem to have a consistent view of the concavity of instantaneous indirect utility functions. He argues that it would be absurd to consume the proceeds of the IPO of a successful startup […]