Mike Sankowski has been banging his spoon on the high chair about this forever. And rightly so. Repeat after Mike. And keep repeating it to anyone who will listen. The “higher-corporate-profits = jobs” meme is perhaps the most pernicious falsehood in political economics. How Business Owners Think For almost ten years I was co-founder and […]
Larry Summers’ recent speech (and Paul Krugman’s paean to it) have brought the issue of secular, decades-long stagnation to the front of the econoblogosphere agenda. Tyler Cowen, of course, made it prominent some time ago. But he posited a tech cause: we’ve picked the low-hanging innovation fruit. Summers, Krugman, et. al. suggest that policies and […]
I really shouldn’t comment on Simon Wren_lewis’s defence of rational expectations until I have calmed down, but I can’t help muself. I will try to stick to FRED, that is data. Wren-Lewis argues that it is reasonable for macroeconomists to assume rational expectations since the practical alternatives are rational expectations or naive expectations. However most […]
What the —! Well it occured to me, and not for the first time, that a lot of people really don’t understand my Social Security project and particularly what even some of my friends and allies think is a narrow focus on the nuts, bolts and numbers of Social Security financial reporting. It seems to […]
Previously, I had written on Fair Market Value and its use by the CBO’s Douglas Elmendorf to rate the risk of Student Loans as advocated by both The New America Foundation and the Heritage Foundation. A rebuttal answer to a partisan CBO, the right-leaning New America Foundation, and the conservative Heritage Foundation on the usage […]
by Dale Coberly How to Sound Insane by Talking Like a Bi Partisan Expert on Social Security I apologize for the next couple of paragraphs because they sound overworked and insane, but that’s what happens when you try to illustrate the way Washington talks about Social Security. Try to imagine you have to buy a medicine […]
Many people look for an inverted yield curve to signal a recession. The track record is good. The yields on longer term maturities decline in relation to shorter term yields. Let me show a version of the inverted yield chart that I haven’t seen anyone do yet. I take the 3-year Treasury constant maturity rate […]
Part 1, Part 2, Part3 Yesterday I criticized Mr. Krugman for saying that savings were in excess. I said that personal savings is down, and domestic savings are not enough to cover investment such that the US has to borrow from abroad. This post will explore the relationship between domestic savings, domestic demand and the […]
by Linda Beale Deficit Disorder Symptoms–via Naked Capitalism/New Economic Perspectives Yves Smith over at Naked Capitalism has an insightful re-post today on the way the right in particular–and most in the media and public–talk about deficits and misunderstand the relative importance of failures to invest in physical and capital infrastructure (roads, education…) versus the relative […]
Via Alternet: The list of Democrats who are entering these negotiations embracing the GOP’s terms continues. There are at least nine in the Senate. California’s Dianne Feinstein, Montana’s Max Baucus, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, Delaware’s Chris Coons and Tom Carper, and Colorado’s Michael Bennett have all said they support cuts to entitlements in letters to […]