Carpe diem, indeed: Mr Bernanke’s own appointment in 2005 was a case in point. There were several candidates that year. According to people involved, then-President George W. Bush leaned towards Martin Feldstein, a former economic adviser to Ronald Reagan…. But Mr Feldstein was a director of the insurance company AIG, which restated five years of […]

This quote has a number of meaning perhaps.  Jay offers one in the form of a question…and more from Bill Black in an interview: The real news BARACK OBAMA, U.S. PRESIDENT: Thanks to the grit and determination of the American people, we’ve cleared away the rubble of the worst economic crisis in our lifetimes. So […]

Mark Dow had a great post the other day: There is zero correlation between the Fed printing and the money supply. Deal with it. He points out (emphasis mine): From 1981 to 2006 total credit assets held by US financial institutions grew by $32.3 trillion (744%). How much do you think bank reserves at the […]

Everyone “knows” that the corporate income tax is a mess. Ask any company. They pay too much in corporate income tax, face rates higher than in any other OECD country, and are just following the law when they use tax havens to keep profits eternally deferred from taxation and to perform general sleight-of-hand.   Don’t […]

This graph speaks volumes: Profits as a Percent of GDP: Financial Corporations vs. Nonfinancial Corporations We saw a big decline in real businesses’ profit share in the 40s, then a slower semi-steady decline through the 70s, as wages constituted a larger share of GDP. Financial corps doubled, expanding and increasing profits, but they remained small […]

The OECD has finally updated their national account data with 2011 info for most countries, so I thought I’d update this post from a couple of years ago. If you’re thinking that the current (overblown) hoo-ra-ra about U.S. government deficits is a result of too much spending, or that U.S. taxes are insanely high and […]

I’ve ground the axe quite a bit over the years for the argument that Kevin Drum makes — and dismisses — here. In brief: poorer people spend a larger share of their income/wealth than richer people. So if poorer people have more income/wealth — if the distribution is more equal — there will be higher […]

For a hot tip for a stock with a dividend yield over 10% averaged over the past five years, click more.

He’s only been blogging since March. His credentials? “Independent Researcher on the equation for Effective Demand.” That may explain why, aside from a lonely Steve Randy Waldman link, I’ve seen no mention of his work out there. Just another internet econocrank? I’m wildly unqualified to pass judgment, but Lambert’s built what strikes me as a […]

Mark Thoma had a tweet asking if the stock market is  in a bubble. I do not think so. The market PE  on trailing operating earnings is 15.5 and my model says that based on the historic relationship to interest rates and inflation the market PE should be 21.5%. Obviously, either the market does not […]