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

Martin Wolf and Richard Felson touch on trade deficit topic

rdan Bloggingstocks points to well known mainstream economists coming around to an Angry Bear point of view: Up ahead: two bigger tasks What’s more, Wolf sees two additional tasks (structural changes) that are just as important to the goal of U.S. economic recovery — but that may be even harder to implement: removing toxic assets […]

Orszag (and Diamond) Flunk Reading & ‘Rithmetic: SS Legacy Debt

Or maybe I did. Given that Peter Orszag is incoming head of OMB and I am, well, me, odds are I am the one in error. But I can’t find it. Maybe someone here can help. This started as an exchange in comments on Is Obama Echoing Bush Andrew Biggs claims the following As for […]

The Big Bad Asset Bank

Robert Waldmann Is proposing toxic sludge inc with a cooler name, while commenting on Krugman. Krugman writes Bad bank bafflement The idea of setting up a “bad bank” or “aggregator bank” to take over the financial system’s troubled assets seems to be gaining steam. So let me go on record as saying that I don’t […]

Robert Waldmann: Economic Theory as a Subbranch of Mathematics

rdan Brad Delong lifted Robert’s comments to a post, and then I lifted the post to here. I find I have a similar problem with other Angry Bears and their comments elsewhere. (humorous sigh) Robert Waldmann: Economic Theory as a Subbranch of Mathematics Robert Waldmann winds up and asks a question: Hoisted from Comments: Grasping […]

INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION vs REAL GDP

By Spencer The typical reaction and/or discussion about the decline in manufacturing employment over the years indicates to me that there is a lot of confusion about what it means. Most comments seem to imply that falling manufacturing employment means that industrial/manufacturing output is falling in importance in the economy. But if you compare the […]

Is Obama Echoing Bush on Social Security?

Andrew Biggs thinks the answer is ‘Yes’ Obama Echoes Bush on Social Security and Barkley Rosser suspects he may be right Obama Drinks Social Security Kool-Aid. Each drawing his particular hope and fear from this WaPo article Obama Pledges Entitlement Reform: President-Elect Says He’ll Reshape Social Security, Medicare Programs Well I am STILL not worried […]

Real Keynesians understand imbalanced trade

rdan Trade and Taxes has a post I recommend reading…this is lifted wholesale as a compliment to Howard’s passion and thought on the issue of trade policy and our woes…we might differ on some of the details, but read carefully: Real Keynesians understand imbalanced trade by Howard Richman The United States is being run by […]