Today’s Page 1, above-the-fold, biggest type headlines for the FT: US PDF edition: “Obama proposes corporate tax rate cut: System ‘outdated, unfair, and inefficient’ US Print edition: “Obama and Romney unveil rival tax plans: Proposals show strong support for reforms” The latter piece waits until the 7th graf to Tell the Truth and Shame the […]

Tim Duy body-slams St. Louis FRB President James Bullard: Estimates of potential GDP are not simple extrapolations of actual GDP from the peak of the last business cycles. They are estimates of the maximum sustainable output given fully employed resources. The backbone of the CBO’s estimates is a Solow Growth model. So I don’t think […]

Let’s ignore that three of his four wins (including two last night) have come in non-binding caucuses and take a quick look at The Size of the Santorum Surge. Over at Skippy, Our Leader posted a link to a discussion of whether “Romney’s strengths” could beat Obama. I wisecracked, without looking at the data, that […]

The President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia: We have been putting out credit in a period of depression, when it is not wanted and could not be used, and will have to withdraw credit when it is wanted and can be used. But this is not Charles I. Plosser, no matter how similar […]

With apologies to Stan Collender’s Beautiful and Talented Wife (not to mention mine): James had gathered a mix of friends, acquaintances, and random strangers at his Rent Party, but no one was talking to anyone else. So he decided to get people to talk to each other, using the easiest non-visible variable available: “Don, what’s […]

Christopher Dodd ruins his reputation: Go read about [SOPA and PIPA], if you haven’t, because it’s pretty insidious stuff, not just because of the governmental control, but because of the corporate power behind it…. Former Senator Chris Dodd, now head of the Motion Picture Association of America (motto: “You can only be our leader if […]

By general consensus, Japan’s “Lost Decade” (now in its Third Decade) begins in 1989. The biggest growth difference appears to come from the U.S. period from the Second (1996) Clinton Tax Reform to the 2001 recession—a big if, I grant you, but one that the Gingrich/DeLay-led Republican Party predicted would produce mayhem, and the alternative-history […]

The good doctor quotes the Paper of Record: Garages near Yankee Stadium, built over the objections of Bronx neighbors appalled at losing parkland for yet more parking lots, turn out never to be more than 60 percent full, even on game days. The city has lost public space, the developers have lost a fortune. and […]