by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt Health Care Thoughts: Rand Paul is a Loon, However….. Rand Paul told an Iowa crowd about “Obamacare codes” and listed some of the wackier codes. Problem is, he is referring to the ICD-10 adaptation, which was first set in motion by the Bush 43 administration. ICD-9 has about 17,000 diagnosis […]
From Aguanomics come these links: Fracking is coming to California in a big way. It’s likely that frackers will be heavily regulated on water quality; it’s ironic that farmers are worried that frackers may be polluting, what? More than them? Ironic, isn’t it? Climate change: “Warmer water will kill off most of California’s native fish […]
Sorry for the thin posting lately…I have had some SI joint problems which makes for difficulty sitting still to focus. Via Keven Drum comes this research paper addressing the issue of sticky wages in the economics of today: First off, a new paper by a trio of researchers confirms some old news: Adjusted for inflation, […]
Old news: April 3. But still: Following up on yesterday’s post, see here from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in The Telegraph (emphasis mine): “All this talk of exit strategies is deeply negative,” [Woodford] told a London Business School seminar on the merits of Helicopter money, or “overt monetary financing”. He said the Bank of Japan made the mistake of […]
by Dale Coberly CHUCK BLAHOUS FINDS THE ANSWER FOR SOCIAL SECURITY AND LOSES IT. Charles Blahous is one of the politically appointed Trustees for Social Security. He has written “A Guide To The 2013 Social Security Trustees Report” at e21 Economic Policies for the 21st Century http://www.economics21.org/commentary/guide-2013-social-security-trustees-report . Blahous tells us “Social Security faces a […]
Part 1. The low standard deviation of GDP growth is simply an artifact of low GDP growth numbers. OK – that’s a bit over stated. The low standard deviation of GDP growth is primarily an artifact of low GDP growth numbers Suppose you have a data set with values hovering around 13, with a […]
I’ve run into quite a bit of confusion in conversations discussing bank reserves, and found occasion to get precise on the usage in recent comments. I thought I’d share it with others. This has been vetted by several who are more worthy than I, so I feel quite confident in offering it up. 1. “Reserve […]
Economists like to say that their discipline is the study of scarcity, or even the science of scarcity. But I’d like to suggest that — acknowledging that it’s a behavioral, social “science” — it’s actually the study of human reaction functions: If X happens, how do people (individually and as groups) react? But unlike other […]
You know the trillion dollars a year of Treasury and GSE bonds that the Fed’s buying up? (And the $3-trillion+ it’s already holding?) It’s driving up bond prices and suppressing yields, right? And if it starts selling them back, it will drive down prices and increase yields, right? The market should be front-running that, right? […]