BY SPENCER The employment report appears to report that the rate of job loss is moderating and provides encouraging evidence that the economy probably is not falling as rapidly as it has been. But the evidence is not that clear cut. Payroll employment reported a 345,000 drop in employment, a significantly smaller loss than in […]

by cactus Following up my post earlier this week on abortion, I was thinking about some of the comments left by readers and I decided to follow a simple thought experiment. I was thinking about what happens when parents split up and one gets custody of the kids – usually the other is required to […]

“100 Tanks Along the Square, One Man Stands and Stops Them There” Update: Rdan here…an update from The Economist

Robert Waldmann So, in the end, it turns out that the FDIC trust fund will not be raided in order to bail out banks by buying overpriced legacy loans. The FDIC retained control, and has no inclination to blow its trust fund, that is, it refused to make no recourse loans to make it possible […]

rdan To begin the conversation now over the next few years. What do we stand for? What is our story? A great start. Update: h/t MG for the transcript of the speech.

By Spencer. We are getting an interesting debate between different economic bloggers today and I thought I would put in my two cents worth. Casey Mulligan at economix began it with an argument that the current recession is not as severe as the 1981-82 recession because that recession was really two recessions and if you […]

Robert Waldmann lifted from Robert’s Stochastic Thoughts From Scotusblog via Hilzoy. In Pappas v. Giuliani, 290 F.3d 143 (2002), [judge Sotomayor] dissented from the majority’s holding that the NYPD could fire a white employee for distributing racist materials. OK so the reverse racist Latina wasn’t quite so intollerant of white racism as the majority of […]

rdan The blog Name Wire poses a potent question on perception of value and who builds a product: The recent news that China has surpassed the US as the world’s second largest exporter — now making more cars than Detroit — has got me thinking about what “Made in China” means to US consumers. Nowadays, […]

Robert Waldmann So I’m reading “Aid Ironies” by Jeff Sachs and nodding my head vigorously. “The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, and the Global Alliance on Vaccines and Immunizations are both saving lives by the millions, and at remarkably low cost.” Yes “Americans … overestimate the actual aid from the US by […]

rdan James Kwak of Baseline Scenario asks an important basic question concerning the statement that ‘big cars are inherently more profitable for car companies, so smaller is bad for profits’, and comes up with this part answer: because we think they do in America, so we can charge more. Anything else you can think of […]