Paul Krugman wrote today the obvious criticism against the Fisher Effect. He completely based his criticism on monetary shocks, which is a short-sighted view.  He is not thinking beyond the shocks. “And we know what happens after a positive shock to policy interest rates: output and inflation both fall.” Yes, that is obvious, but what […]

That’s the conclusion of Stuart W. Elliott in his recent paper, “Anticipating a Luddite Revival.” (Hat tip: RobotEconomics.) We’ve seen that scale of transformation before. But this one promises to be roughly four times as fast, dwarfing Luddite-era concerns: …the portion of the workforce employed in agriculture shifted from roughly 80% to just a few […]

The current Chief Actuary of Social Security is Stephen Goss and on the occasion of the publication of the 75th Anniversary issue of the Social Security Bulletin he contributed what may be the most valuable single piece you will ever read on Social Security financials. The article carried the title The Future Financial Status of […]

Back in the 90’s I sat down and chatted with a philosopher from India that was passing through my local town. He said one thing that I have thought about for years. He told me that according to Indian culture, there are 4 types of people related to the elements, Fire, Earth, Air and Water. […]

Correction appended below. —- Scott Lemieux weighs in at The Week, writing that, although “Supreme Court voting is too complex to be explained by any single factor,” the “attitudinal model” – which posits that “Supreme Court votes are explained by what judges consider desirable policy” – “still contains a good deal of truth.” — Amy […]

Here is another comment on Krugman. It is exactly the maximum length he allows (and three periods are followed by single spaces to get the counter to 0 from -3 — I might as well tweet). His excellent post is here. He links to an even better post by Matt O’Brien at wonkblog. It’s depressing, […]

Paul Krugman wrote the “neo-Fisherite” view that lower interest rates lead to lower inflation [skip] why doesn’t this debate emphasize the large empirical literature on the effects of monetary shocks? [skip] I mean, this is largely what Chris Sims got his prize for. It’s about as close to a fully established empirical result as we […]

With the release of Tim Geithner’s new autobiography the old quarrel about whether Social Security does or even can add to “the deficit” has cropped up again. So rather than weigh in let me start from a more neutral spot. CBO produces a document called the Monthly Budget Review and in Nov 2013 it carried […]

I’m encouraged any time government functions. We’re a very philanthropic society. We always want people to have safety nets. Medicaid is meant to be a temporary measure to provide benefits for people who are in difficult circumstances. It’s not meant to be going on forever. — Scott Brown, when Politico reporter Kyle Cheney asked him […]