Robert Waldmann This is a brief follow up on my post on measuring bubbles. The amount lost due to sub-prime mortgages in default is tiny compared to the damage done. How large can the ratio of damage to losses be ? My answer is it can be infinite — that it is possible for irrational […]
Brad DeLong and John Cochrane agree on something. I must dissent. Delong and Cochrane agree that “The underlying decline in wealth from the housing bust was … around $400 billion. …” Indeed, relative to the size of the economy the losses during the crash of the dot-com bubble were four times as large. I object […]
Robert Waldmann The Congressional Budget Office is different from you and me. Their forecasts are authoratative — literally. The rules of the House and the Senate refer to CBO estimates and forecasts not some debatable underlying reality. Hence this slightly edited dialog Sen. Max Baucus, Chairman: [skip]We’re not in the old situation where Sen. Grassley […]
Robert Waldmann is back I didn’t mean to stop blogging for so long. I apologize. I also apologize for this post which is one of my occasional screeds against welfare reform. Oddly there seems to be almost a consensus that welfare reform was a good policy. I think this is based entirely on the fact […]
Robert Waldmann Zenapax world supplies at risk – well basically nonexistent. I was thrilled when my father, Thomas Waldmann won a Service to America award in large part for his contribution to the development of Daclizumab, that is, Zenapax TM, a humanized monoclonal antibody which inhibits the immune response. Zenapax is approved for sale for […]
I winced typing that title, since it is not wise to disagree with Paul Krugman and since I am going to argue that cutting the minimum wage can cause increased employment. Before going on, I stress that I oppose cutting the minimum wage as the logic of my argument suggests making the tax code more […]
Robert Waldmann One of the puzzling aspects of the European debate over how to increase financial regulation after the crash was the idea that hedge funds should be regulated more. This is odd as they didn’t destabilize the system. I just assumed the Europeans can’t stand unregulated people making huge amounts of money. Now I […]
So the Sen Ten have reached a secret deal. The main points seem to be that the public option is replaced by an sub – exchange of private non profit insurers (which is very close to nothing at all) and people from 55 to 65 can buy into Medicare. I was going to give a […]
Robert Waldmann Has a thought about how to get votes for a cap and trade bill in the Senate without giving a windfall to incumbent polluters. The problem is that it seems to be necessary to buy the votes of coal state legislators. The House’s solution is to give C02 permits to current polluters. This […]
Robert Waldmann Among experts, there is a widespread view that people in the USA support social insurance an oppose welfare. It is a fact that they support social security old age and disability pensions and hated AFDC. It is suspected that describing social security as a pension plan with mandatory participation is part of the […]