Mike Kimel to the blue courtesy phone 6:05 PM PT: Newt Gingrich begins by taking credit for creating 36 million jobs, 25 under Reagan, he says, 11 under Clinton. My problem isn’t Newt claiming credit for everything good which happened before he resigned in disgrace, it’s the numbers. Employment increased by less than 17 million […]

Newt Gingrich tells the truth. “the individual mandate was originally developed by the Heritage Foundation and others, as a way to block Hillarycare.” Firebaggers argue that the PPACA is conservative, because it is similar to a Heritage Foundation proposal. They neglect to note that the proposal was made in bad faith. The point was to […]

I agree with Diamond and Saez that the top marginal income tax rate should be slightly over 70%, but I don’t agree with what I take their reasoning to be. My argument after the jump. They argue that the tax rate should be chosen to maximize taxes collected from the super rich. the argument that […]

All You Need to Know about Newt The Gingrich health center’s support for such a mandate was part of an “Insure All Americans” plan that appears to have disappeared from the center’s Web site Thursday. See that there is nothing here http://www.healthtransformation.net/cs/insure_all_americans But it is still here Key quote Require that anyone who earns more […]

Rumors suggest that Italy is so desperate for money that it will try the full Monti*. Mario Monti is about to be asked to try to form a government. Of course the actual negotiations have begun, except it doesn’t seem that Prof. Monti is inclined to negotiate. His position seems to be that Italian politicians […]

The current consensus is that Berlusconi is toast, or, as Krugman would say, Crostini. It is a bit risky to change horses in mid crisis and change Prime ministers in mid stream, but Berlusconi is a large part of the reason no one trusts Italy. Also everyone is totally sick of him especially his closest […]

Republican Rep. Joe Walsh was the only Illinois congressman to be named a “True Blue” member of Congress for “unwavering support of the family” by the Family Research Council Action committee Thursday. Walsh’s ex-wife says Walsh owes more than $100,000 in back child support for their three children. emphasis mine. Uh couldn’t they have thought […]

Italy is more fubar than you imagine possible even taking into account the fact that it is more fubar than you imagine possible. That said, I insist the we are solvent (I am really really and that Italian long term treasuries (BTPs) are a great buy right now. Please. We need the money. But I […]

A challenge for monetary authorities in a liquidity trap is that it is hard convince people that they won’t reverse expansionary policies as soon as the economy leaves the liquidity trap. The other problem is that they can’t do much other than affect expectations while the economy is in a liquidity trap. This suggests that […]

Regular readers will recall that I have been very skeptical of claims that the Fed can cause a large reduction in unemployment by declaring a nominal GDP target and/or buying long term Treasuries. Joe Gagnon is very prominent advocate of unconventional policy, so I was surprised to find that I so strongly agreed with so […]