Give me some help here. With the 2003 Social Security Report the Trustees launched a new measure for evaluating the strength of their projections going forwards. And it can be found here: Appendix E. STOCHASTIC PROJECTIONS 1. BackgroundThe Trustees Report has traditionally shown additional estimates using a low cost and a high cost set of […]
rdan The Financial Times offers some thoughts on the Fed’s exit strategy when the economy begins to improve. This question was asked in comments in relation to the advisability of government intervention at all due to the lack of thought to ending the intervention. (Returning the control back to private banking).
rdan The Second Report of the Congressional Oversight Panel of January 9, 2009 from the Oversight Committee for TARP makes for beginning reading. Mostly unanswered questions, but no surprise. If no subpoenas are needed Elizabeth Warren who heads the committee may get more answers to sensible questions over time.
By Spencer This chart from the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank is starting to appear on various web sites. Among others, Alex Tabarrok of Marginal Revolution published it. It is an interesting looking chart, very similar to many I do. But it struck me as odd, there was something wrong with it. I can not remember […]
by Bruce Webb (first three sentences edited since original post a few minutes ago)The 2005 Report was a mild disappointment. The 2006 Report somewhat worse. 2007 showed some mild improvement but didn’t even get us back to 2005 numbers. Now the 2008 on the surface looked a lot brighter but most of that turned out […]
by cactus A Further Critique of Romer and Romer Let’s take another look at the main Romer and Romer findings, namely that under some circumstances, tax cuts are good for economic growth. In the past I noted I have a few problems with it, but I thought I’d let the Romers work speak for itself […]
Robert Waldmann I’m still thinking about Krugman’s excellent little model which gives the very clear result that optimal macro policy implies that unemployment is always at the natural rate and so, if the nominal interest rate is zero, the optimal fiscal stimulus should drive unemployment all of the way to the natural rate. Krugman’s model […]
by Bruce Webb. Sorry for two posts in a day. But the raw data is important.OAS (Old Age Survivor) starting 2008 balance $2.023 trillionIntermediate Cost projection for year end $2.216 trillionLow Cost projection for year end $2.221 trillionPreliminary year end balance $2.203 trillion or up $180 billion for the year. DI (Disability) starting 2008 balance […]
Parts of the blogosphere are in an uproar over some Q&A the other day that some interpreted as Obama putting Social Security ‘reform’ on the table. Well for reasons outlined by Barkley Rosser (and posted below by Dan) I don’t think we have much to worry about to begin with. But even if the Obama […]
Digital History has an interesting note on WPA history, and the equivalent FDR spent on such projects. Work crews were criticized for spending days moving leaf piles from one side of the street to the other. Unions went on strike to protest the program’s refusal to pay wages equal to those of the private sector. […]