Robert Waldmann Paul Krugman does not think highly of Austrian or liquidationist theories of the business cycle. He recently remade an argument which is hard to refute “the whole notion falls apart when you ask why, say, a housing boom — which requires shifting resources into housing — doesn’t produce the same kind of unemployment […]

Robert Waldmann OK now that I have your attention, the policy is publicly funded primary care in public clinics staffed by federal employees (including the MDs). This is an excellent policy which provides care for the uninsured and reduces health care spending, because then they don’t have to go to emergency rooms then declare bankruptcy. […]

By Spencer, Reading the financial press, various economic blogs and watching CNBC clearly leaves the impression that the current weakness in the dollar is having such a massive adverse impact on the holding of the Peoples Bank of China ( the Chinese central bank) that they are very seriously considering selling their dollar holdings and […]

rdan Adam Smith’s Lost Legacy, a blog maintained by Gavin Kennedy who resides in Edinburgh, Scotland, is a wonderful gem to visit to take a thorough look at the broad extent of Smith’s writings. He makes a wonderful defense of Adam Smith that rescues his reputation as a thinking man instead of the one dimensional […]

by Rebecca Ex post, it is obvious that the Fed was way too tight in the second half of 2008. To be sure, the FOMC was actively engaged in its standard easing policies; however, the Fed got the Treasury to aid in its sterilization efforts, and later the Fed fast-tracked the interest on reserves (IOR) […]

by Bruce Webb If you click on the Social Security link in the upper left sidebar you are sent to an index page on my website which in turn links back to an extended series of posts here at Angry Bear starting in May of 2008. Something that apparently a reader did this morning leaving […]

Back in the old days of derivatives (the mid-1980s), there was an international commercial bank that was famous for declaring how much good derivatives had done for it. It was famous because it was common knowledge in the marketplace that the bank would have its swap counterparties “buy out” the positions where it was due […]

All right, I give up. I’ve reviewed for the Washington Post Book World, I consider some of their work interesting, and can almost forgive them for publishing Ruth Marcus, Charles Krauthammer, Anne Applebaum, and Richard Cohen as if they were sane. But when your Ombudsman claims that your readers “typically demand coverage that is unfailingly […]

by Rebecca(cross posted at Newsneconomics) Prof. Jim Hamilton at Econbrowser (thanks Mark Thoma for the link) addresses one of the Fed’s standard methods of draining liquidity from the banking system: reverse repurchase agreements. Basically, the Fed will transfer some of its assets to the banking system via short-term loans taken out with its Primary Dealers, […]