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

Basic Macroeconomics

by Mike Kimel Recently I had the opportunity to speak to Professor David Cohen’s class on the US Presidency in the Political Science department at the University of Akron. My talk was structured around three questions involving some extremely simple recent economic history. None of the questions were trick questions. The questions appear below. — […]

Lifted from comments

Lifted from comments on the housing situation by Spencer…Housing vs. Household formation. Of course the point also being…what is going to be the source of growth for US citizens? kharris comments and adds another contributing factor on the housing market: …Banks already have pretty nearly all the housing assets they care to have, thank you […]

Health Care Thoughts: Please do everything you can….

Health Care Thoughts: Please do everything you can…. …. to keep mom/dad alive. Physicians and nurses often dread these conversations. Any of us who have been on the family side of this know how agonizing it can be. And I know even mentioning this can cause a firestorm. However, there are some unsettling issues raised […]

Speaking engagement

by Mike Kimel Speaking Engagement If anyone is in the Akron, Ohio area and has any interest, I will be giving a guest lecture at David Cohen’s American Presidency class on Monday Sept. 19. The class runs from 12:05-12:55 in Leigh Hall 510. I’ll be talking about Presimetrics, the book I co-authored with Michael Kanell. […]

More Wilder on Europe today

by Rebecca Wilder I present some basic statistics to highlight the problem in Europe. In short, there exists a deleterious positive feedback loop between overly leveraged banks and their sovereigns in key markets. Exhibit 1: European Banks are overly levered. Spanning 2006 through the latest data point, key European banking systems – France, Germany, and […]

The Effect of Individual Income Tax Rates on the Economy, Part 6: 1981 – 1993

by Mike Kimel The Effect of Individual Income Tax Rates on the Economy, Part 6: 1981 – 1993 This post is the sixth in a series that looks at the relationship between real economic growth and the top individual marginal tax rate. The first looked at the period from 1901 to 1928, the second from […]