In this post, I criticize current US weapons policy. I have been doing this for over 40 years. I have been saying the same things for those 40 years. This means I can check on the hostages I have given to fortune and mark my beliefs to market. My thoughts again 1) I think that […]
I plan to write a series of posts on which and how many weapons the US should buy. I start with two important disclaimers. First, obviously, I have no expertise and probably don’t know what I am talking about. Second, I firmly believe that the US Federal Government intertemporal budget constraint is currently satisfied with […]
Recently, we have learned that the Russian military is vastly less capable than anyone imagined. Also, in three whole weeks, Ukrainians have markedly reduced the capabilities of the Russian military. Therefore, naturally many governments (including the German government) have decided they must spend more on their militaries to face the Russian threat. This makes no […]
Russia has just attacked Ukraine. US policymakers seem to agree that we should impose severe economic sanctions (but definitely have no US boots on Ukrainian ground). What can the US do without firing a shot ? I think the US can impose extreme costs on Russia (hurting Russians other than Putin who are not to […]
Reading the first few paragraphs of Last War Brain by Noah Smith, I thought I would strongly disagree with his post and decided to write an attempted rebuttal. I find that I agree almost 100% and can mainly complain about what I assert is a bit of bait and switch. As always I advise readers […]
Real Wages Grew During Two Years of COVID-19 After Controlling for Workforce Composition Sean Howard, Robert Rich and Joseph Tracy February 15, 2022 I propose you just read it. They are quite convincing. The bottom line is that real wages increased last year (the top line is nominal wages and yes I like to take […]
I find myself disagreeing completely with Ezra Klein. This is very unusual and I feel compelled to blog about it (note you should not feel at all compelled to read this post which is self therapy). I am commenting on a twitter thread here. I am going to cut and paste a lot (because I […]
Noah Smith (and many others) is irritated by a puff piece about Stephanie Kelton and modern monetery theory MMT by Jeanna Smialak in the New York Times. I am not interested in Smialak’s article. I think that Noah sums up his critique here very well “The article then demonstrates that it has little notion of […]
The stability and growth pact regulated the fiscal policy of Euro bloc countries. It is currently suspended, because of Covid. There is an ongoing discussion of whether to reactivate it when the epidemic ends or whether to replace it with something else. I strongly advocate eliminating it and replacing it with nothing. Very very rounghly, […]
My mind goes back to 2008. I was recently tempted to ask why bad loans by banks are a public problem. I was tempted to say that the bank made the loan, so it is their problem. If enough debtors default that the bank fails, so what? Then I remember the very appealing logic of […]