King v. Burwell [Cert] and Halbig v. Burwell) arrived at the DC COA in hopes of defunding (Ted Cruz’s top priority dream) the PPACA. Initially, a 3 judge panel ruled 2-1 striking down the funding of the PPACA based upon an earlier IRS interpretation of PPACA Section 1311 stating “Exchanges established by States.” Section 36B […]

What is the primary error in macroeconomics? Potential output… and this error is huge. The measure of potential output is the foundation for many calculations. Natural real interest rate Natural level of unemployment Monetary policy Slack If you get these wrong, there will be problems. Paul Krugman wrote an article for the IMF, Increasing Demand. […]

Paul Krugman takes aim today at me (though he doesn’t know me from shinola), and others of my ilk who are at least somewhat obsessed with coming to a coherent definition of “money.” …people who spend too much time thinking about money in general — specifically, on trying to decode money’s true meaning and find the […]

Okay, so most of you who don’t live in Iowa (and most of you don’t live in Iowa, since it’s not a populous state) probably are unaware that the outcome of the election to replace retiring progressive Iowa senator Tom Harkin—which in turn may determine party control of the Senate—may turn on a dispute between […]

I have been reading the ebook on Secular Stagnation. It is interesting that two sections in the book have the titles… Three Issues: Potential Growth, Effective Demand and Sclerosis Further on Effective Demand Great! We see the term Effective Demand being used. Yet, Effective demand is never defined in the book. Moreover, the term is […]

The ECB raised its benchmark rate in 2011 from 1.0% to 1.5%. Since then the rate has moved down to 0.15%. After their benchmark rate was raised in 2011, the Euro area went into a recession. Did the ECB cause the recession by raising their benchmark nominal rate? Some say yes. I say the story […]

Barkley Rosser at Econospeak writes an op-ed on the Washington Post’s reporting: Dana Milbank Joins Parade Of WaPo Hysterics Over Social Security And Medicare Dean Baker has posted on this more completely and effectively than I shall do here (and his url is so long on this one, I shall not link directly, sorry), but […]

Sandwichman at Econospeak writes more on the issue of ‘labor’: Lump of Labor Day Special: Advanced (Elementary) Concepts in Mathematics “…if there be but a certain proportion of work to be done; and that the same be already done by the not-Beggars; then to employ the Beggars about it, will but transfer the want from […]

I think this is too good to excerpt just read “Want better, smaller government? Hire another million federal bureaucrats.” by John DiIulio. He argues that the obsession with keeping the number of Federal civilian employees low has reduced efficiency and created powerful concentrated interests represented by powerful lobbies. The fact that he was “the first […]