At risk of stating the obvious, in this post I’d like to highlight a pernicious misunderstanding that I find to be widespread out there in the world. This is not new thinking. You’ll find a more sophisticated historical account, stated very clearly though in somewhat different terms, in the first few pages of this PDF. Still, […]
If you use the read more in the original employment report post you can see the full report with charts. Spencer
By recent norms this was an unusual employment report in that the data worked the way we would like to see. In the household survey the unemployment rate fell to 7.5% because the labor force rose by 210,000 while employment increased a larger 293,00 so the number of unemployed fell by -83,000.
by Robert Waldmann An important study of the effect of Medicaid on health was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study was based on a genuine experiment where some people were given Medicaid and other people weren’t based on a lottery. Unfortunately, the results were communicated with a NEJM press release and […]
Last year I had solar panels installed on my roof under a deal where I pay nothing up front for the installation and pay the solar company for the power I produce at a rate about 75% of what I pay the electric utility. I’m so thankful that I got professional help from this energy […]
Great presidents rise above circumstance. Not Obama, at least not yet. At a news conference Tuesday marking the 100th day of his second and final term, the president seemed unwilling or unable to overcome stubborn GOP opposition. — Ron Fournier, National Journal, yesterday (h/t Jonathan Chait, New York magazine, today) Fournier’s right, of course. About […]
An old friend dropped by recently and we had a few beers on the back deck. He runs his family’s commercial real-estate business; they own and operate half a dozen or so pretty large properties (and just bought another) — a mall, office buildings, mixed use. I was really curious to talk to him about […]
This if nifty, from The Wall Street Journal: Hat tip Barry Ritholtz. Cross-posted at Asymptosis.
Lifted from an article in the NYT. In the heat of media debates certain fundamental narratives get lost regarding the tools we use to evaluate policies. Pre-occupation with unemplayment is one of them. While familiar to readers of Angry Bear, it bears reminding ourselves that while ‘economics’ attempts to figure out how the economy works, […]
That is all. FRB: Press Release–Federal Reserve issues FOMC statement–May 1, 2013. Cross-posted at Asymptosis.