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

To send money is not to spend money

Robert Waldmann Atrios vs Bernanke. OK so I agreed with Atrios about Greenspan (just below). Now I disagree with him about Bernanke. He equates loans with gifts. He equates worse than optimal with worse than nothing (dealing with free market fanatics can cause one to overlook the difference). Bernanke could have sent money from the […]

Only that which is rational is real

CNBC reports Greenspan … added that the financial crisis could not have been foreseen. “It is just not feasible to forecast a financial crisis,” he said. “A financial crisis by definition is a sharp abrupt, unexpected decline in asset prices.” Notice that he says if it is unexpected, then it *can’t* be forecast. That is […]

hundreds of billions = 0 ?

Robert Waldmann The www.washington.com Headline and abstract person has outdone himself or herself writing CBO sees debt estimates soar Analysts say health law has not improved budget and Obama’s tax agenda will make things worse. Lori Montgomery As Kevin Drum says always click the link. Lori Montgomery actually wrote President Obama’s overhaul of the health-care […]

Nick Rowe asks if new Keynsian models make sense

Robert Waldmann Nick Rowe asks a very interesting question. After the jump I attempt an answer Please read Rowe’s post first. The following will make no sense at all if you don’t (note reading Rowe’s post is a necessary not a sufficient condition for it to make sense). The short explanation is that Rowe finds […]

And now for something completely different

Robert Waldmann Those of us who fear global warming want to make it more expensive to burn coal. One way to do this is to impose absurdly high wages and restrictive work rules on coal mines. We know how to drive prices up. It is easy. Militant unions have shown the way. I propose the […]

One last desperate attempt to save cap and trade

Robert Waldmann Ezra Klein shows a graph and writes What you’re seeing there [will see if you click this link] is a projection for how our energy usage would change after 20 years of a Waxman-Markey-like cap-and-trade bill. As you can see, transportation — which is probably what most Americans think would be affected — […]

Americans want to Soak the Rich MMCCLXXVII

Robert Waldmann Jeff Sachs proposed higher taxes on the rich.Felix Salmon wrote I don’t think this is possible, politically, in either the US or the UK. In the US, the middle classes are implacably opposed to tax hikes on people making more money than they themselves will ever make. Kevin Drum agrees with Salmon about […]

LeMieux Amendment Passed

Robert Waldmann I completely missed this. From the final House Bill, click through (I can’t direct link) or find in the pdf “SEC. 6009. REMOVAL OF STATUTORY REFERENCES TO CREDIT RATINGS.” This removes the references to NRSRO from federal agencies and the law. The LeMieux amendment is the language of SEC. 6009 from the House […]

Why be normal

Robert Waldmann is commenting on a comment at Mark Thoma’s blog. The comment NotMarkT ha detto… One of the difficulties with model selection for assessing tail probabilities is that the empirical data often can’t distinguish among light (e.g., normal) or heavy tailed (e.g., pareto) distributions. The model selection problem then becomes a question of optimism […]