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

Quote of the Day Last Thirty Years of Economics

From, naturally, Robert Waldmann, chez DeLong, pointing out that the Emperor not only has no clothes, but has been deliberately strutting his lack of stuff since the late 1970s: Oh another thing — [the problem with economic modeling] isn’t [limited to] new classical macroeconomics. The same criticisms apply to new Keynesian DSGE models. Adding totally […]

A Carleton S. Fiorina Finger Exercise

Brad DeLong catches Tim Berners Lee Timothy B. Lee [h/t Bob in comments] being, to be nice, disingenuous: …The idea was that [HP and Compaq] would be able to do the things they already did more effectively if they joined forces. Management consultants who examined the merger for HP found that (as Fiorina loved to […]

Marking Beliefs to Market, Stan Fischer edition

Brad DeLong Friday morning: I cannot help but note strong divergence between the near-consensus views of Fed Chair Janet [Yellen]’s and Fed Vice-Chair Stan [Fischer]’s still-academic colleagues and students that tightening now is grossly premature, financial markets’ agreement with the hippies as evidenced by the ten-year breakeven, commercial-banker and wingnut demands for immediate tightening, the […]

Serious Question, Janet Yellen Edition

In spite of a sustained lack of inflation, a large, sustained gap in the Civilian Employment/Population Ratio, an abiding lack of post-recession growth domestically, and significant underperformance (old, new, [PDF] and overall) internationally, the Fed appears prepared to raise interest rates this year. Which leaves me now wondering: With the possible exception of Robert, is […]

Or Is It really a Kenyan this time?

Carter, Begin, Sadat, Brezhnev, and Deng are all long gone. Rumor has it that the last political icon of Tim Curry’s only pop hit has joined them. Or has he? The death of Fidel Castro, 88, has also often been mistakenly declared before on social media and this time may have been confused with the […]

Just Go Read

As I said on Facebook, it appears that Tim Armstrong—who got paid $12 million last year alone as CEO of the dead-on-its-feet AOL—is even more of an asshole than anyone previously believed. The pull quote: Until the morning I woke up in labor, every exam indicated that our daughter was perfectly healthy. In fact, had […]

Because Piling On Is Sometimes Necessary

I was going to leave Richard Cohen alone: Gawker, LG&M, Dr. Black, etc. etc. all covered him.  There’s nothing to say that Katherine Weymouth didn’t already, save possibly that I’m thinking of burning all my non-existent copies of Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy” in effigy. But I can’t resist coming out of what appears to be a […]