In 1998, the gov made it impossible to discharge federal student loans through bankruptcy except upon death, disability, or public service. The gov did provide certain measures to change payments then such as forbearance, economic forbearance (no interest for 3 years), and payment change. In 2005 private student loan originators lobbied to have the same […]

by Dale Coberly CRFB Analysis of the 2014 Trustees Report A reply by me a reply to me and agreement? The Committee for a Responsible Budget (CRFB) published what they called an analysis of the 2014 Trustees Report. I read it and was at first disappointed that it seemed to be the same old attack […]

At the 9:40 minute point of this video, Heiner Flassbeck says… “… But even people who are asking for more expansionary fiscal policies like Larry Summers or Paul Krugman, they are not talking about intervention in the labor market, but this is what is absolutely needed because there is the imbalance. It has nothing to […]

News was released today that unemployment was 6.2% in July. How close are we to the natural rate of unemployment, or as some might say the NAIRU. In my research into effective demand, I track the natural rate of unemployment. How do I determine the natural rate of unemployment? … By comparing unemployment to the […]

Matt Bruenig gives us a great breakdown of what poverty would look like if we relied on the market to solve it (as we did almost exclusively for thousands of years before the emergence of enlightened modern welfare states over the last two centuries). The poverty rate among the elderly would be > 45%. (Old […]

The USA is a left of center nation given the center defined by elites. This is my off topic thought (and comment) on a brilliant post on money and politics at The Monkey Cage. Ray LaRaja and Brian Schaffner note that parties give to centrist incumbents (likely to be in seriously contested seats) and argue […]