by David Zetland Local versus regional control In response to this: “The public sector is often better at handling inter-agency cooperation and the private sector is often better at delivering cost-effective, measured results. In either case, the local government plays the most important role as it needs to oversee and regulate all players. Poor regulation […]
John Quiggin writes something absolutely conventional and accepted by 99% of macroeconomists and I throw a cow. Sometimes I bore myself but I must object to “The big problems arose out of the Phillips curve, as I’ve discussed before. First it was oversold as a stable trade-off by Keynesians [citation needed].” Which Keynesians when ? […]
Lifted from Stochastic Thoughts comes a whimsical post by Robert: Is there a Craig who own’s Craig’s list ? This is an honest question. If so, why isn’t he very rich ? Classified ads were a huge cash cow for Newspapers. The internet is killing them not because of say blogs, but because it is […]
U.S. Population Distribution by Age, 1900 through 2060 (Bill McBride,Calculated Risk) Animated wonder.
After posting an article about how imports create saving for investment, a conversation was started. The conversation led to doing more research and developing new explanations to understand the basic circular flow model. This is actually a very important issue to get right. The circular flow is such a basic part of understanding the economy. […]
Says John Aziz, “Economics, broadly defined, is the study of human action and interaction.” Which reminds me to post this, which has been long brewing in my head. More carefully and precisely defined, I posit the title of this post: Economics is (should be) the study of how individuals and groups react to changing circumstances (which circumstances include […]
David Zetland at Aguanomics ponders the interplay of institutions and markets (reposted with authors permission). LocaL conditions in this context are those conditions in a watershed area. This is what I mean by institutions I wrote this for some partners on our water project, and I post it here because it seems to give a […]
From Social Europe Journal comes more analysis of using Ireland as the standard success story for austerity (re-posted with permisson from the author and SEJ): Can Spain Achieve What Ireland And Latvia Did? BY RONALD JANSSEN Advice from a ‘very serious European’. Picking up on the IMF’s report on the Spanish economy and its call […]
Via Alternet comes this quote from Victor Hugo in Les Miserables: Victor Hugo described this war with the poor in Les Misérables as one between the “egoists” and the “outcasts.” The egoists, Hugo wrote, had “the bemusement of prosperity, which blunts the sense, the fear of suffering which is some cases goes so far as […]
Paul Krugman points to Angry Bear Kenneth Thomas in this piece in the New York Times on the use of Ireland as somehow a success story of what are failed policies regarding employment: Ireland Is The Success Story Of The Future, And Always Will Be Via Mark Thoma, Kenneth Thomas analyzes the latest attempt to […]