I have screamed for the last several years that the problem with economics isn’t that Macro is problematic; DSGE is a detour but—as Noah Smith shows here—it can be used as an access road. The problem is assuming that “micromotives” must be universal.  For all of the emphasis about the glories of using natural logs […]

David Zetland writes a well written nine page look at the limits of economics in at least the media and political level, and a look at the limits of what economic models have to offer most people. This will be a series of posts highlighting major points over time. The paper must be downloaded to […]

Reader Matthew McOsker writes more on the deficit: History Lesson – Deficits as a % of GDP, Tax Rates DISCLAIMER: This is not a defense of Bush II. Just the facts on the deficit, and a further discussion of sectoral balances and some tax rate info. Let’s look at some history, because the belief is […]

NPR’s “Marketplace” reported Monday that the European Union planned to impose a tax on bank deposits in Cyprus of up to 10% to bail out the country’s banks. This unprecedented action threatens to undermine confidence in banks throughout the eurozone periphery, Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Ireland. As Louise Cooper told Marketplace, “(This move) says […]

In his NYT column today, David Brooks employs his standard column-writing formula of plucking two or more unrelated facts from their context and specifics, putting them into a sequence, and–voila!–suggesting a causal relationship, or at least a relationship of some sort, and therefore some conclusory fact.   This time around, he does it in the […]

Via Salon, David Sirota points to statements by John Boehner and Rand Paul: America owes this debt of gratitude to Boehner after he finally came clean on yesterday’s edition of ABC’s “This Week” and admitted that “we do not have an immediate debt crisis.” (His admission was followed up by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, […]

Peter Dorman at Econospeak writes a gem of a post asking readers to ask simple questions when offered a morality tale by journalists, or an implied cause and effect tale, and how it takes no special skill to ask simple business questions that the journalist should at least ask, even if not o tanswer all […]

Ezra Klein has an even more interesting than usual column on feverish demand for the services of Obama campaign data wonks. After Obama’s reelection, former adviser David Axelrod recalls that “one of the first calls I got was, ‘Who are the young geniuses? We want to find out if we can hire thwe”[skip]it’s the tech […]

Lifted by Dan from Robert’s Stochastic thoughts Robert writes: I was reasonably sure that the latest Ruth Marcus column would cause me to have to  revise and update my earlier post declaring her a heroine of Ballance.   She comments on the fact  that Republican representatives live-tweeted snark during the question and answer session with […]