by Bruce Webb Balt Sun: Obama picks Carolyn Colvin for SSA Deputy President Barack Obama has chosen Carolyn W. Colvin of Maryland to be deputy commissioner of Social Security, the White House announced Thursday. Currently special assistant to Maryland’s transportation secretary, Colvin was Montgomery County Health and Human Services director until her dismissal by newly […]

Once Again, D-Squared Explains It All: [T]he Big Mac Index can plausibly claim to be the major methodological forerunner of Freakonomics, as it combines the two methodological techniques of choosing “quirky” instruments more valuable for their amusement value than their validity, and not checking anything to see whether it’s economically meaningful. I’m not certain that […]

Probably I accept elimination of the rule that financial companies must offer plain vanilla products for a different reason, since he isn’t as ignorant as I am, but I would think that with a plain vanilly requirement, banks would offer plain vanilla products on terrible terrible terms. 30 year mortgage OK but the interest rate […]

by Rebecca Neal Soss and Henry Mo at Credit Suisse published a very interesting article, “Where is full employment in a more volatile macroeconomy?”, where they argue that the natural (long run) rate of unemployment may be shifting (they do this by showing that the Beveridge curve, which plots the the job vacancy rate against […]

D-Squared: Lots of people appear to be forgetting this one or getting it wrong…the central model of The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money is a rational expectations model. The difference with the soi-disant “rational expectations” school is over the expectations-forming process with respect to the effect on price and output of monetary policy, […]

I don’t have my notes all together from yesterday, but Lance Mannion hits most of the second half of the day with this, this, this, and this post. Especially check out the last one. One panelist’s description yesterday of putting glasses on a child yesterday was as if it were directly out of the opening […]

Robert Waldmann Matthew Yglesias is completely mystified by opposition to deficit spending by the public and by Michele Boldrin. I basically agree with him, but I think that he is missing something. In response to public opposition to deficit spending he expresses the Keynesian argument perfectly Thinking about it rationally, the reason to worry about […]

Robert Waldmann OK so Snowe has broken with the other Republicans. After a heated hour-long exchange, Democrats defeated a Republican effort to restore $113 billion in funding for Medicare Advantage, a private insurance program that has been criticized for high costs. All 13 Democrats on the committee were joined by one Republican, Sen. Olympia J. […]

Noni Mausa has agreed to become the latest ‘Bear’ who will contribute on a regular basis to Angry Bear. Her wit and gracious style as a professional writer (and poet) are familiar to regulars, but she has been captured for now as a contributor. An addition of spice to the mix. Welcome to another really […]