Rick Perry famously declared that there was no recession in Texas, even though the only way they balanced the budget was through emergency funding. Rick Perry and the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas appear not to talk with each other: Texas factory activity showed the first signs of bottoming out in September, according to the […]
Manufacturing evidence is apparently legal for prosecutors who then prosecute the case. This, at least, is the argument a couple of crooked prosecutors are making. Radley Balko is more optimistic than I am about prosecutors: If the Supreme Court…would essentially overturn Buckley and give prosecutors complete immunity, even when they conspire to convict an innocent […]
Once of the things that was clear at CGI this week is that the power companies that have looked into alternative energy sources have quickly realised they are not only good publicity but profitable (i.e., lower cost when used to scale). Florida Power & Light (discussed here) expanded an already major commitment, mostly in FL […]
Once Again, D-Squared Explains It All: [T]he Big Mac Index can plausibly claim to be the major methodological forerunner of Freakonomics, as it combines the two methodological techniques of choosing “quirky” instruments more valuable for their amusement value than their validity, and not checking anything to see whether it’s economically meaningful. I’m not certain that […]
D-Squared: Lots of people appear to be forgetting this one or getting it wrong…the central model of The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money is a rational expectations model. The difference with the soi-disant “rational expectations” school is over the expectations-forming process with respect to the effect on price and output of monetary policy, […]
I don’t have my notes all together from yesterday, but Lance Mannion hits most of the second half of the day with this, this, this, and this post. Especially check out the last one. One panelist’s description yesterday of putting glasses on a child yesterday was as if it were directly out of the opening […]
Ken Houghton notes that Stanford Professor and “Taylor Rule” founder John Taylor is blogging. (No RSS or Atom feed yet.) His charts are better than this one looks, though his data is clearly GIGO. (See the link at his post.) This blog was included as one of the 100 Best Blogs for Econ Students by […]
This one’s going to be long because a lot of general themes get presented. Those looking for the shorter version may want to just go to the website and watch the videos.* William Jefferson Clinton (WJC) introduces the proceedings by giving a background on the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI). CGI began in 2005, and required […]
The one thing that got both daughters excited last night was “You’re going to see the President!” Didn’t have the heart to tell them it would probably be from a separate room. And, indeed, space upstairs maxed one. It’s 3:40; Barack H. Obama is scheduled to speak in about twenty minutes, though I might bet […]
It’s true that I have been a bit nastier than usual with some posts (especially this one and this one—though the latter was rather justified by preceding events, as Tom detailed.) The sight of economists who should know better saying “Ewww, tariffs” in the manner of second grade boys who think girls have “cooties” is […]