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

Is There a Puzzle to sluggish consumption?… No, Look to Capital Income

In a post by Shobhana Chandra and Jeanna Smialek at Bloomberg called Yellen Spending Mix lacks Ingredient of Higher Pay, there is a quote… “It doesn’t “add up,” said Neil Dutta, head of U.S. economics at Renaissance Macro Research in New York. “Consumer confidence is at a cycle high, and consumption is declining. You also […]

A Bit of History… Bernanke 2003

  This video of a speech by Ben Bernanke in 2003, is quite interesting. In the speech he laid the groundwork for what would eventually be his policy to combat the Great Recession. He talked about inflation, slack in the economy, price stability and even the possibility of taking the Fed funds rate to the […]

“Does Chief Justice John Roberts show a certain casualness about the truth?”

Each week I get an email from Slate telling me what the latest articles are there, this one caught my attention; Richard Posner on Roberts” For those of you who may not know, Richard Posner writes articles on the economy; but, he is also an 7th District Appeals Court Justice. The 7th District is the […]

NY Fed’s Bogus Estimate of Return on College and Brookings Institute Misses the Student Loan Crisis

Yves at Naked Capitalism writes “NY Fed’s Bogus Estimate of Return on College and the Neglect of the Intellectual Commons” Yesterday, the New York Fed released a new report by Jaison R. Abel and Richard Dietz, Do the Benefits of College Still Outweigh the Costs? which is getting good coverage in the mainstream media. Its […]

I keep wondering: Is anyone under the age of 40 ‘Ready for Hillary’?

Yves Smith linked this morning on her Naked Capital blog to my post from yesterday called “The Secretive Democracy Alliance’s Secret Is Out: Some of its members are elitist, racist and self-serving,” and added a comment about it: Helpful, but does not follow the logic to the obvious conclusion. Why is the Dem apparatus harping […]

The Secretive Democracy Alliance’s Secret Is Out: Some of its members are elitist, racist and self-serving.

Clarification appended below. —- [David] Brock, a former “right-wing hit-man”-turned-top-big-money-Democratic-operative, is part of a behind-the-scenes campaign to convince donors it’s OK to attack the Koch brothers for spending millions of dollars while doing the exact same thing for the left. “You’re not in this room today trying to figure out how to rig the game […]

Supply Creates Its Own Demon: Marc Andreessen and "Textbook Luddism"

by Sandwichman at Econospeak Supply Creates Its Own Demon: Marc Andreessen and “Textbook Luddism” Marc Andreessen has a column in the Financial Times with the headline, “Robots will not eat the jobs but will unleash our creativity.” Here are the first two paragraphs: A growing number of people seem to fear that robots will eat […]