Why “Entitlement” Cuts and Not Tax Increases Again? John Cochrane has to remind us that he co-authored a really bizarre oped: Unless Congress acts to reduce federal budget deficits, the outstanding public debt will reach $20 trillion a scant five years from now, up from its current level of $15 trillion. That amounts to almost a quarter […]
The story of globalization from a US point of view continues. Here AB reader Denis Drew is highlighted at DeLong’s website: Paul Krugman on globalization Brad DeLong asks ‘what did PK miss?’ Comment of the Day: Dennis Drew: GLOBALIZATION: WHAT DID PAUL KRUGMAN MISS?: “I’m always the first to say that if today’s 10 dollars an hour […]
The Coordinated Activity Theory of the Firm I just got around to posting this paper on SSRN, although it was written a couple of years ago. I need to cite it for other work I’m currently doing, so it has to be out there, somewhere. It is a more concise version of the theory than previous renditions […]
This Is Tax Simplification? I happen to support tax simplification that does not increase regressivity of the tax system, and I recognize that there are a few parts of the Trump tax change that do that. But mostly it massively increases regressivity, along with massively increasing the budget deficit at a time when we are […]
LOLFF on TED In a TED talk, “3 myths about the future of work and why they are not true” from December 2017, Daniel Susskind channels Sandwichman: Now the third myth, what I call the superiority myth. It’s often said that those who forget about the helpful side of technological progress, those complementarities from before, […]
A thought for Sunday: a note of caution about opinion surveys with voluntary associations I read a Pew Research study a few days ago with a startling statistic: aside from self-identified Republicans, the single group most strongly approving of Trump was white evangelical Protestants (dark is approval, light is disapproval): This is mind-numbing, especially when […]
by Steve Roth (at Asymptosis) I just had occasion, in replying to a correspondent, to reiterate much of the thinking in my recent MMT Conference presentation. I thought it might be a useful and comprehensible form for some readers, so I’m reproducing it here. I’ve also explained this at somewhat painful length here. Correct me if I am […]
The Unsolved Riddle of Poverty Reduction A submission to the B.C. Poverty Reduction Strategy engagement process March 23. 2018 “What makes one poor is not the lack of means. The poor person, sociologically speaking, is the individual who receives assistance because of the lack of means.” – Georg Simmel “A tight labor market is important for all […]
JOLTS revisions paint brighter labor market picture Last Friday’s JOLTS report for January included some important revisions, particularly with regard to hiring. So let’s take a closer look.As a refresher, unlike the jobs report, which tabulates the net gain or loss of hiring over firing, the JOLTS report breaks the labor market down into openings, […]
By Cactusman Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, and the Economics of Privacy Cambridge Analytica – the data firm that provided consulting services for the Trump Campaign – has come under intense scrutiny for the firm’s capture and exploitation of vast quantities of user data from Facebook. These practices have added new urgency to questions about how information […]