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

Transmission Channels for the Fed’s QE2

What are the channels for QE2? In a recent post, David Beckworth outlines his frustration: “It has been frustrating to watch Fed officials explain QE2. The standard Fed story centers around the QE2 driving down long-term interest rates and stimulating more borrowing.“ On the tip of my tongue, I can think of three direct channels: […]

Derivatives: greater transparency is needed

by Linda Beale Derivatives: greater transparency is neededcrossposted with Ataxingmatter The big banks got into considerable trouble doing derivatives trades–especially the credit default swaps where AIG was the major counterparty and the taxpayers ended up bailing out the Big Banks like Goldman Sachs. So surely one of the results of “financial reform” in the wake […]

Confusions and policies…let’s keep the players in mind all around

Chinese Confusions by Paul Krugman These days, China seems to play the same role in much of our discourse that Japan did two decades ago. We look at our own follies — which are immense — and then look at the Chinese, and ascribe to them all the virtues of foresight and determination we lack. […]

Health Care thoughts: Hysterical Reporting

by Tom aka Rusty Health Care: Hysterical Reporting Fox News ran a screaming intro and a scary bottom summary line on a story on some survey of physicians, claiming a majority of physician will quit, retire or work part-time. Link via Yahoo: http://news.yahoo.com/video/health-15749655/23362511 This is further proof that Fox News does not do journalism. The […]

Opportunities in Detroit?

by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt Opportunities in Detroit? Detroit has lost about 60% of its population since the 1950s peak of about 2 million. About 50 square miles of Detroit is so thinly populated that the Mayor wants to pay for people to move to more densely populated neighborhoods so the area can be abandoned […]

Can Either James Kwak or Mark Thoma Build This Model?

Update: Brad DeLong looks at the data and suggests that the problem may be that the current President is as innumerate as the previous one. Mark Thoma quotes James Kwak: So no, I don’t think Obama is abandoning his principles for political advantage; I think these are his principles. And while I’m upset at him, […]

Google wonkiness?

I have no idea what the advanced Google reader filter actually does. Yves has fun with it as do readers in comments. Here is ours.