Via Naked Capitalism comes this question about comparing economic data for a successful area in the aggregate with contrasting signs of things being not so good for some. Puzzling Economic Sightings Now and again I ask readers for input on what they are seeing locally, a sort of regional check on the statistics and media […]

by Linda beale The ‘ignorance is bliss’/’ride’em cowboy’ mentality of today’s GOP Today’s GOP is dominated by the Tea Party types that are a cross between an ostrich with its head stuck in the sand– the “ignorance is bliss” philosophy– and a 1860s cowboy as depicted in the 1960s western-mania TV shows– the “hell bent […]

Via the Washington Post comes this idea of economic incentive: But research by noted economists Karl Case, John Quigley and Robert Shiller found the households were more powerful affected by declines in wealth than increases. An unexpected 1 percent drop in housing prices caused a permanent 0.1 percent decrease in spending, that study found. But […]

This is a companion piece to Steve’s AB post from earlier today, where he points out the specious reasoning of  “the likes of Scott Sumner, David Beckworth, Lars Christensen, et al., claiming that fiscal austerity has obviously had no effect on GDP growth.” I wrote Sumner off a few years ago due to a highly […]

You’re seeing a lot of crowing these days from the likes of Scott Sumner, David Beckworth, Lars Christensen, et al., claiming that fiscal austerity has obviously had no effect on GDP growth. “Look!” they say: “Even with the sequester and all the other government spending cuts, growth in 2013 has been the same as 2012! […]

The Cato Institute, originally the Charles Koch Foundation, is one of the most influential libertarian think tanks in the country. With both Charles and David Koch on its board of directors, Cato has produced numerous studies on the evils of corporate subsidies (which it calls “corporate welfare“), dating back at least to the 1990s. Supposedly, […]

I’m constantly astounded that nobody on the left or the right ever mentions Milton Friedman’s proposal for taxes on corporate profits. On page 174 of (my edition of) Friedman’s libertarian bible Capitalism and Freedom, he proposes what seems a simple and sensible plan (transcription here): …the abolition of the corporate income tax, … with the requirement […]

In my ongoing efforts to clarify national-accounting-speak (for myself and others), I’d like to take a stab at some language that is often used ambiguously: the notion of “public” debt. (See also Thinking About the Fed.) If you don’t think anyone is confused by that term, understand: in “public debt,” “public” means government. In “debt […]

Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff wrote an angry open letter about how Krugman has been uncivil to them.  Krugman’s reply strikes me as being convincing even devastating. Update: My full fisking here. I want to focus on one sentence in the R&R letter   “politicians may float a citation to an academic paper if it […]

Just click the link and read it.  This is solid experimental evidence that if you just give her some money she will learn how to fish on her own so stop being so paternalistic.