Robert Waldmann It sure looks like the US economy would benefit from a second stimulus. However, it also looks clear that congress will not pass an optimal second stimulus. Getting my thoughts on economics and politics from a philosophy major, I note that Matthew Yglesias notes that it would be very hard for congress to […]
Robert Waldmann There is something which I genuinely don’t understand about US journalism. Why don’t US journalists cite Seymour Hersh more ? I have never heard anyone rank him as an investigative journalist lower than number one, yet his stories vanish for months or years until someone else reports them. For example, yesterday the Wall […]
Robert Waldmann The absolutely brilliant and almost reliably reasonable Kevin Drum quotes the very smart and usually reasonable Dan Drezner and writes In a speech today in Russia, Barack Obama said that “the pursuit of power is no longer a zero-sum game.” Dan Drezner isn’t so sure: If he had said, “The pursuit of prosperity […]
Robert Waldmann I almost feel I might disagree with Paul Krugman about international economics with imperfect competition. In particular Krugman confidently asserts that the wild swings in the the price of petroleum are the result of simple supply and demand curves (which are both extremely price inelastic so almost vertical) and not of speculation. He […]
Robert Waldmann Paul Krugman thinks that a US politician is excessively opposed to tariffs. End of days near. I think the president has this wrong: President Obama on Sunday praised the energy bill passed by the House late last week as an “extraordinary first step,” but he spoke out against a provision that would impose […]
Robert Waldmann Suggests that serious readers go read Brad Delong’s comment on Greg Mankiw’s comment on Paul Krugman’s assertion that George Will and Gred Mankiw are “either remarkably ignorant or simply disingenuous.” Totally asking for it, Mankiw also commented on Krugman’s post referring to DeLong and Krugman as a tag team. I just want to […]
Robert Waldmann A good sign of a totally bogus argument is reliance on contradictory presumptions of fact. When one is simply wrong, one can often make a convincing argument by inventing facts. When one is being absurd, one can fall into the temptation to invent inconsistent facts. In this article in the Washington Post Ceci […]
In which Robert Waldmann finds economic theory useful. A question: when does deficit financed public spending cause higher interest rates which cause private investment to be lower than it would be other things (including the spending) equal. Proposed answer, not when we are in a liquidity trap. Depending on the definition of liquidity trap this […]
Robert Waldmann The unexpected increase in US productivity growth in the 90’s and naughties is an economic puzzle. At the time it was widely argued that investments in information and communications technology had finally finally paid off, that computers and the internet allowed vastly improved corporation wide inventory control and the increased output given inputs […]
Robert Waldmann The Washington Post just fired Dan Froomkin. This has caused considerable outrage on the web. Interestingly, my personal reaction was that Froomkin doesn’t need the Post — he will get high traffic with a new affiliation or with an independent blog. After the jump a recollection about how Froomkin has been getting in […]