Being born on November 9th, I will get the end of this campaign for my birthday (tough luck Josh Barro of course this also means that I couldn’t vote in 1978 the year I turned 18 (but neither could J Barro so there)). It also means that my astrological sign is scorpio, which is relevant […]

Eminent macro/growth economist Paul Romer denounced business cycle macroeconomics. I strongly advise reading his wonderful paper, which is devastating and funny. I’d also look at Noah Smith’s intelligent discussion. But if you insist, read on.

Last night I clicked on the NYT website and saw a prominently-featured article by Kevin Sack and Steve Eder titled “New Records Shed Light on Donald Trump’s $25,000 Gift to Florida Official.”  The article lays out a sequence of events concerning Trump’s charity’s Sept. 2013 check to Florida AG Pam Bondi’s 2014-reelection-campaign PAC. The check, […]

So some econ out of Harvard is shocked about what he found regarding our economy.  It’s a government problem.  The government is just not responding (read that: not doing anything). Americans no longer trust their political leaders, and political polarization has increased dramatically. Americans are increasingly frustrated with the U.S. political system. The political system […]

Wow, I don’t know quite what to say here but this is an honest to God headline from Reuter’s Kremlin: Obama’s Trump criticism anti-Russian, won’t foster better ties Now we can take it as given that none of Obama, Trump or even the Russians are responsible for writing Reuter’s headlines. So I leave it to […]

by New Deal democrat The real, timely “real median household income” just stood up: Sentier Research In April of this year, I wrote a piece entitled “Would the real real median household income please stand up?” discussing three separate measures from the Census Bureau, the BLS, and private think tank Sentier Research. By now you […]

AND THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN IS VERY GOOD AT DECEIVING PEOPLE: Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway has this to say on CNN about whether Trump will release his health records: “As far as I can see, there are two major party candidates running for president and only one of them has pneumonia and lied about it….He won’t be […]

In, I’m guessing, four or five posts here at AB in the six weeks or so, since hedge fund billionaires Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah Mercer were profiled in two or three articles because they’re providing substantial funding to Trump’s campaign and for the last few months have served as his puppeteers—steering both his […]

Here is a graph from FRED showing monthly percentage movements of core inflation. (link to data) There used to be ranges that core inflation moved within. The monthly change either hit the maximum of that range or the minimum with some breakout movements in between. Monthly movements made sense by looking at 12-month moving averages. […]