Jared Bernstein is saying that the unemployment rate is actually higher than 6.7%… “Based on numbers I’ve written about in greater detail, I think a more representative rate would be about 9 percent.” His reasoning is based on the fall in labor force participation. But I do not agree with his logic. 6.7% is a […]

Via Economist’s View is Mark Thoma’s new column in Financial Times Why is the Recovery so Agonizingly Slow? Why is the Recovery so Agonizingly Slow?, by Mark Thoma: Friday’semployment report underscored just how slow the recovery from the Great Recession has been. When the recession officially ended in June of 2009 the unemployment rate stood at […]

Democratic operatives tell me that this basic message is, broadly speaking, how Dems will respond (where appropriate) to attacks over the law. The ad says: “Ann Kirkpatrick listens and learns. It’s why she blew the whistle on the disastrous health care website, calling it ‘stunning ineptitude,’ and worked to fix it. She fought to hold […]

Via Think Progress comes Alyssa Rosenberg’s comments on one lesson from the news of Chris Christie’s politics in NJ: What happened to people who were affected by the traffic closure was ridiculous. But a willingness to inflict ridiculous consequences on innocent people is actually a rather serious thing to do. People who want Chris Christie […]

As the Euler equation begins its descent into history, where will we go from here? Well, we must understand the social psychology impacting consumption. It is not always true that higher interest rates leads to less consumption and more saving. Just look at the financial repression in China, where higher returns to savings increase consumption. […]

Maggie Mahar at healthinsurance.org takes a look at stories easily fact checked in Anatomy of an Obamacare horror story For months, health reform’s opponents have been feasting on tales of Obamacare’s innocent victims – Americans who lost their insurance because it doesn’t comply with the ACA’s regulations, and now have to shell out more than […]

by Linda Beale Time to end redistribution upwards: minimum wage increases would boost economy and lift all boats. No matter how much the business lobby complains about the “business costs” of increasing the minimum wage, legislators should look past that self-serving ideology and look at reality.  Workers have contributed to increased productivity but received a […]

Noah Smith wrote a GREAT! post about how the data does not support the Euler equation. His post strikes at the heart of why economics and monetary policy is failing. Hopefully, we will see a revolution in thought about interest rates and monetary policy. The one sentence from his post that empowers the rebels is… […]

Labor’s share of national income sets a limit upon the utilization of labor and capital. That is the basic principle of effective demand. Domestic production periodically hits the effective demand limit. But are imports also constrained by the effective demand limit? Yes, they are, at least for the US. Let’s look at imports to exports. […]

House Speaker John Boehner told a closed meeting of his colleagues that a Republican pollster found that for the first time, most Americans blame President Barack Obama for the economic troubles, not George W. Bush. “Barack Obama came into office blaming George W. Bush for the state of the economy and the lack of job […]