The American consumer has not yet showed any sign of slowing down, despite higher interest rates and slower house price appreciation. Today’s release of January retail sales by Census reported the following: The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for January, adjusted for seasonal variation and […]
While Tyler Cowen is playing the Ricardian Equivalence card, he opens with the central concern that an increase in consumption means a reduction in investment: Assume that government spends some money today on consumption. That money could have been spent on a durable bridge, but it wasn’t. Some current people benefit from the consumption and […]
The graph presents the black unemployment rate since 1995 to counter these lies from Jerry Bowyer: Even more striking than the booming job market, however, is the rapid improvement in black employment. Last August, BuzzCharts pointed out that black unemployment was historically low. Since then, it has fallen even further. In fact, it has dropped […]
Maybe we should be relieved that Dick Cheney did not serve in Vietnam – especially as we see what Josh Marshall has learned: Things can get chaotic and excited when a bunch of birds (I’ll just try, as a blanket matter, not to use the jargon) come into range or rise up. But if you […]
Dr. Thoma excerpts from Paul Krugman’s NY Times Commentary: Debt and Denial. Dr. Krugman writes: “In 2005 spending on home construction as a percentage of G.D.P. reached its highest level in more than 50 years. People who already own houses are treating them like A.T.M.’s, converting home equity into spending money: last year the personal […]
Tyler Cowen cuts through a quarter of a century of free lunch Republican spin in just two sentences: Taxes already were raised when the government spending occurred. In that sense the “tax cuts” never were permanent. This is what I love about conservative economists – they get right to the point. Twenty-five years ago, I’m […]
It seems that we can now move beyond talking about a flat yield curve to talking about a truly inverted yield curve: Yield curve inverts after strong auction NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — The Treasury yield curve turned completely upside down early Friday, pushing the 2-year yield above the yields of both the 10-year and 30-year […]
The New Economist provides links to a piece by Michael Mandel noting his usual argument that the national income account definitions understate savings as well as a reply from Brad Setser and the Michael’s reply to Brad. As you will notice in a moment, I’m a bit biased to what Brad said so let me […]
This Knight-Ridder piece about Bush’s Health Savings Accounts raises an interesting question: do people have too many financial choices in their life already? WASHINGTON – President Bush’s proposed expansion of Health Savings Accounts depends on a premise that research shows is questionable: that Americans want more financial choices in their lives. Experts point to a […]
Kevin Drum writes: Like the creature that won’t die no matter how many bullets you put through its heart, Social Security privatization is back for an encore in President Bush’s 2007 budget proposal … The full faith and credit of the United States government is just an “empty promise.” It’s sort of like listening to […]