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

Jamie Dimon May Come Out Swinging Tomorrow, But His Fast Ball Isn’t What It Was

“Which Jamie Dimon will appear before the Senate Banking Committee in Washington on Wednesday?” asks Reuters BreakingViews columnist Rob Cox in a Slate piece.  “The self-effacing JPMorgan boss offering apologies for his bank losing at least $2 billion on bum trades?,” he asks? “Or the combative JPMorgan leader who just a year ago publicly challenged the […]

An Open Letter to Robert Barro

Noahpinion points us to — and goggles in amazement at — Robert Barro’s latest op-ed in the WSJ. Why This Slow Recovery Is Like No Recovery This prompts me to republish an open letter to Professor Barro that I posted some years ago. (To which, not surprisingly, I never received a reply.) It speaks volumes […]

The Macroeconomics of Chinese Kleptocracy

Damn, Krugman beat me to this yesterday. I thought I would be bringing in a fascinating piece from the fringes of the Australioblogosphere. Bronte Capital: The Macroeconomics of Chinese kleptocracy. My basic take is the same as Paul’s: I have no idea whether this John Hempton piece on China is at all right, but it’s […]

Vanity, All Is Vanity. David Brooks Gets One Thing Right.

Today (emphasis mine): Vast majorities of Americans don’t trust their institutions. That’s not mostly because our institutions perform much worse than they did in 1925 and 1955, when they were widely trusted. It’s mostly because more people are cynical and like to pretend that they are better than everything else around them. Vanity has more […]

The Italian Economy Is Sliding

by Rebecca Wilder The Italian Economy Is Sliding Today I.Stat released the breakdown of Q1 2012 real GDP for the Italian economy. Weak external demand plus a precipitous drop in private sector spending dragged the headline real gross domestic product (GDP) 0.8% over the quarter (3.2% at an annualized rate). The highlights are the following: […]

Obama " Private Sector Doing Fine"

by Spencer England A couple of weeks ago President Obama said that the private sector was doing fine. Needless to say this was subject to much criticism from some sources.  But is that criticism justified ? Let’s see what the data says.  This chart of real business output  compares output in the five long cycles […]

Which Spending Is Easier To Cut And By What Level Of Government?

by Professor Barkley Rosser Reposted from Econospeak with permission from the author Which Spending Is Easier To Cut And By What Level Of Government? Back from his break, our former co-blogger, Dean Baker at Beat the Press, takes down WaPo ed page editor, Fred Hiatt, for his pushing yet again for cutting Social Security because […]

Punishing Irresponsible Parents and Punishing the Children of Irresponsible Parents

by Mike Kimel Punishing Irresponsible Parents and Punishing the Children of Irresponsible Parents Not long ago, my wife came home a bit shocked. My wife has a small business: she buys houses, fixes them up, and puts renters in them. If I may brag about my wife a moment, I note she buys well, is […]