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

A Tale of Two Recoveries

A Tale of Two Recoveries podcast from the Roosevelt Institute compares the recoveries between now and the Great Recession. What’s Changed since the Great Recession? The shifts in economic policy thinking over the last decade helped produce today’s record-breaking recovery. Heidi Shierholz: “The economy is not like the freaking weather, right? Like it really is […]

The only critical number is the doses of vaccine administered

January 2021 jobs report: a strong divergence between very weak job gains, but a big drop in unemployment; but the only critical number is the doses of vaccine administered  For the past several weeks, based on the increase in initial jobless claims, I have warned that the December employment report might have a negative number, […]

$1 trillion to be spent on direct hiring…that’s the ticket!

With all this stalemate posturing in Washington, today Chris Hayes has come up with the best idea I have heard yet to move the players. And, in my opinion actually solve our economic depression.   One trillion dollars to be spent on direct hiring by the government along with debt forgiveness.  A solution right out […]

Jobs before, jobs after

The NELP offers a look at the trend for job creation. And there is the caveat that of the productivity gains post recession, over 90% went to those with income over $450,000. http://www.nelp.org/page/-/Job_Creation/LowWageRecovery2012.pdf?nocdn=1

Private Real GDP in Recoveries

Update: Paul Krugman at Conscience of a Liberal points to Spencer England’s post in his column 8/1…Dan I thought it would be interesting to post this chart of real private GDP in recoveries. It clearly shows that since the great moderation we have experienced three recoveries that compared to previous recoveries were very weak.  Whether […]

The Scariest Graphic I Made All Week, or, Still More on Excess Reserves and "Money"

One of the nice things about the Kauffman Foundation’s Blogger Conference is the time to let the mind wander and look at data after having your brain scoured. One of the worst things is realizing too late that you’ve got a Really Ugly Graphic, and most of the people who could help with it are […]

Panel Discussion with: Krugman, Sachs, Phelps, Soros

Just wanted to let everyone know about a presentation that aired on Cspan’s Book TV.  It is a 2 hour panel discussion titles: Global Economy: Crisis Without End.  It was held 2/17/12.   Click hereto bring up the show.   What I found most interesting was the different perspectives between Krugman and Sachs. I’m not […]

Must-Read of the Day, non-NBER edition

Tim Duy body-slams St. Louis FRB President James Bullard: Estimates of potential GDP are not simple extrapolations of actual GDP from the peak of the last business cycles. They are estimates of the maximum sustainable output given fully employed resources. The backbone of the CBO’s estimates is a Solow Growth model. So I don’t think […]

How Keynesian Policy Led Economic Growth In the New Deal Era: Three Simple Graphs

by Mike Kimel In this post, I will show that during the New Deal era, changes in the real economic growth rate can be explained almost entirely by the earlier changes in federal government’s non-defense spending. There are going to be a lot of words at first – but if you’re the impatient type, feel […]

Sumner, Skidelsky, Keynes and Liquidity Traps

by Mike Kimel I was searching for some information and I stumbled on a post Scott Sumner wrote last year about Robert Skidelsky’s biography of John Maynard Keynes. I haven’t read Skidelsky’s book, nor do I know Skidelsky, and its been awful long time since I read Keynes, but this seems an odd complaint: I’m […]