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

They Also Serve Who Only Stand and Graph: A Graphical Response to Paul Krugman on the Effect QE1 and QE2

by Mike Kimel They Also Serve Who Only Stand and Graph: A Graphical Response to Paul Krugman on the Effect QE1 and QE2 I’ve taken a lot of flak for critiquing two posts by Paul Krugman in two posts of my own (the second one is here). To summarize the point where people keep telling […]

Conservative or Liberal? One Question to Rule them All

I’m devastated that Christian Rudder hasn’t posted to the OKTrends blog for more than a year.* He did statistical analysis of the monstrous database of OK Cupid — a dating site that asks participants hundreds of often odd and quirky questions about themselves — to draw out conclusions about various, sundry, and often fascinating topics. […]

2012 Social Security (and Medicare) Reports: due Monday

If past file conventions hold true these links should work immediately on release of the 2012 Social Security and Medicare Reports Monday morning. This link  SHOULD get you to the CURRENT summary. Which means 2011 until it means 2012. When it does. Social Security and Medicare Summary Report BTW from all evidence 99% of all […]

Reading the Social Security Report: "What is crisis? In context?"

The first link is to the 2011 Report and is meant as a teaching tool. The Table shows projected income, cost, and balance projections over what the Trustees consider the ‘short term’, which is the same ten years used by OMB and CBO in their scoring. Table IV.A3.—Operations of the Combined OASI and DI Trust […]

The Laugher Curve: Romney Etch-A-Sketch Aide Says Romney Thought TARP Unnecessary but Urged Support of It as a Give-Away to Wall Street

Okay.  The subtitle of this post is a loose paraphrase of statements that Romney aide Eric Fehrnstrom made to ABC News on Thursday.  But not all that loose a paraphrase. It’s actually a direct deduction from Fehrnstrom’s comments. As Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent mentioned on Friday, Fehrnstrom test-drove a new, or rather a newly […]

Guest post: Greg Mankiw doesn’t understand competitio​n for investment

by Kenneth Thomas of Middle Class Political Economy Greg Mankiw doesn’t understand competitio​n for investment Greg Mankiw’s column in Sunday’s New York Times makes the case that competition between governments is a good thing, that it makes them more efficient in the same way that competition among firms does. He paints it as also being […]

Beckworth Promotes Platinum Coins as Obama’s "FDR Moment"!

You know things are weird when pretty strongly right-of-center economists are proposing ideas first touted by MMT econocranks (yes, beowulf, I’m talking about you) to bring about the Obama breakout moment that progressives (despairingly) dream of at night. The world is a very strange place. And people argue with Steve Randy Waldman when he says […]

Mitt Romney, American Parasite, Destroys America’s Mittelstand

Speaking of “extractive elites,” don’t miss Pete Kotz’s cover story in the Village Voice, Mitt Romney, American Parasite. (I read it in their subsidiary Seattle Weekly.) It details a whole string of Bain purchases under Romney — thriving companies that were saddled with debt so Romney could extract cash in the form of “profits,” leaving […]