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

The REALLY ANNOYING Don’t-Wanna-Subsidize-Wealthy-Kids’-College-Tuition Canard [With fun update!]

Hillary Clinton’s performance wasn’t as clean or as crisp as her last one. Among other things, she invoked 9/11 in order to dodge a question about her campaign donors. But she effectively made the case that, though Sanders speaks about important questions, his solutions are ultimately simplistic and hers are better. Instead of railing about […]

Oscar Landerretche on Inequality

Oscar Landerretche is an awesome economist from Chile. Below is an excerpt of his participation in a video forum with Brad DeLong on the Politics of Inequality in 2012. Since then he has become the President of the Board of Directors for Codelco, the largest copper producer in Chile. He is currently dealing with the […]

Clinton Campaign Spokesman Brian Fallon Says Healthcare Insurance Premiums Aren’t Paid by Families and Employers, Because They’re Paid to Private For-Profit Insurers. Seriously.

“Bernie Sanders has called for a roughly 9-percent tax hike on middle-class families just to cover his health-care plan,” said Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon, referring to legislation Sanders introduced in 2013, “and simple math dictates he’ll need to tax workers even more to pay for the rest of his at least $18-20 trillion agenda. If […]

High slack or Low slack?

One has to be crazy to disagree with Brad DeLong. Then, I must be crazy. He said… “After being wrong for eight straight years, critics of expansionary macro policies in a high-slack low-inflation economy–” Link It is true that if we look across America, we will see lots of slack and underemployment. Labor force participation […]

Why Tyler Cowen Doesn’t Understand the Economy: It’s the Debt, Stupid

In a recent post Tyler Cowen makes an admirable effort to lay out his overarching approach to thinking about macroeconomics, revealing the assumptions underlying his understanding of how economies work. (Even more salutary, this has prompted others to do likewise: Nick Rowe, Ryan Avent.) Cowen’s first assertion: In world history, 99% of all business cycles are real […]

Growth in the Emerging Market Economies

by Joseph Joyce Growth in the Emerging Market Economies In recent decades the global economy has been transformed by the rise of the emerging market economies. Their growth lifted millions out of poverty and gave their governments the right to call for a larger voice in discussions of international economic governance. Therefore it is of […]

Hillary Clinton’s Interesting New Math. (It doesn’t appear to have been devised by academics, and hopefully it will not become part of public school curriculums.)

Defending herself from claims that she’s too cozy with Wall Street, Clinton responded, “Not only do I have hundreds of thousands of donors, most of them small….” The Federal Election Commission defines a small donation as less than $200. Her campaign has received $13.3 million in small donations, just a fraction of her total haul […]