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

Trade and Growth

Warning: This post is probably more for my own benefit than for anyone else’s edification. If you’re tired of arguing about trade, then skip this post. And if you’re not interested in reading about some rather technical economic research, then skip this post. On the other hand, if you’ve always wanted to see examples of […]

GDP Revision

This morning the BEA released its second estimate of fourth quarter GDP. The estimate for GDP growth was revised up substantially, but the level was still very low, and the upward revision was no more than most observers had hoped for. Comparing to the BEA’s first estimate: The preliminary estimate of the fourth-quarter increase in […]

Housing: Slowing, but Not Crashing

The Census Bureau report released this morning showed January New Home Sale were still strong. In fact, on a Not Seasonally Adjusted basis, January 2006 was the strongest January on record. Following is a graph of NSA January New Home Sales showing 2006 is a new record. Click on graph for larger image. The strong […]

David Rosenberg is a Smart Bear

Via CalculatedRisk comes Reassessing Hard Landing Risks written by David A. Rosenberg of Merrill Lynch. I’m calling David a bear as he is not buying all the Pollyanna stories as to how great the U.S. economy is doing. There is a lot of material here but I especially liked his comments about the labor market: […]

Buckley v. Kristol on Iraq

William Buckley says It Didn’t Work: One can’t doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed. The same edition of the paper quotes a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Reuel Marc Gerecht backed the American intervention. He now speaks of the bombing of the especially sacred Shiite mosque in Samara and what […]

Polley and Setser on the Yuan

Bill Polley responds to my critique of Michael Darda: China made a decision over a decade ago to fix its currency to the dollar. This was before the massive explosion of growth and before the Asian financial crisis. They have managed one of the most successful hard pegs in the region, and it probably saved […]

Michael Darda’s Fiscal Advice for the FED

There is wee bit in Michael Darda’s latest that I might agree with – but given the following, I have two questions for him and the rest of NRO Financial: If Congress doesn’t act to extend the 2003 tax cuts, tax rates on capital will rise, which would depress after-tax rates of return to capital […]

Libby’s Lawyers: Our Client is Above the Law

Perhaps you may recall the greymail tactics of Scooter Libby’s defense team. When Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald called the defense team on these tactics, the defense attorneys accused Mr. Fitzgerald of lying and were insulted by the allegation – even though the allegation is clearly true. The latest tactic from the defense team seems to […]

Measuring Well-Being

I just came across an interesting paper by David Blanchflower and Andrew Oswald entitled “Happiness and the Human Development Index: The Paradox of Australia“. The paper raises a question of crucial importance to economists who think about development and growth issues: what measures should we use to gauge whether any particular group of people are […]

On Real Wealth Accumulation Since 2001

Via Mark Thoma comes a study by Brian K. Bucks, Arthur B. Kennickell, and Kevin B.Moore on the decline in average real household income and the very modest increase in real household wealth. Their study also shows that wealth inequality has increased. As Tom Bozzo notes: Also, the low official savings rate, which gets pooh-poohed […]