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

Debt, Recession, and That Ol’ Devil Denominator

Krugman recently presented this graph, showing household debt as a percentage of GDP. and made this comment. Second, a dramatic rise in household debt, which many of us now believe lies at the heart of our continuing depression. There are those who seem to believe that if Krugman says it, it must be wrong.   Here […]

If there was a Public Option in PPACA, what grounds would the Supreme Court use to overturn it?

The above is a more-than-semi-serious question. I’ll be blogging/tweeting the Kauffman Foundation’s Bloggers’s Forum tomorrow from 9:30-3:30 EDT (8:30-2:30 here in Kansas City; 6:30-12:30 in DeLong/Thomaville; in Hawaii, they’re still watching Dave Garroway). You can tell it has reached maturity because tomorrow’s presenters include J. Bradford DeLong, Scott Sumner, Tyler Cowen, and Karl Smith—and that’s […]

The Gold Index, April 1933 – February 1934, Courtesy of Scott Sumner

By Mike Kimel The Gold Index, April 1933 – February 1934, Courtesy of Scott Sumner I’ve been having a bit of a back and forth with Scott Sumner of The Money Illusion over the degree to which monetary policy, in particular the devaluation of the dollar, affected the economy in 1933. (My most recent post […]

Scaling to New Depths* with Scott Sumner

by Mike Kimel Scaling to New Depths* with Scott Sumner I’ve been having a bit of back and forth with Scott Sumner. Here is his latest post, helpfully entitled: “A suggestion for Mike Kimel.” His key suggestion: “Please take a close look at the data from the Great Depression, before doing more posts claiming I […]

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 […]

Is Scott Sumner Reality Based ?

Scott Sumner wrote If pressed, Keynesians will usually point to real interest rates as the right measure of monetary ease or tightness. By that criterion the Fed adopted an ultra-tight monetary policy in late 2008. Monetarists will usually say that M2 is the best criteria for the stance of monetary policy. By that criterion the […]