The notorious GSE bailout will probably cause the US Federal debt to be considerably lower than it would have been without the bailout. It could cause the US Federal debt to be much lower than it would have been, but that won’t be allowed to happen. Fannie and Freddie are now profitable. They are likely […]
Let me start by saying that I do not support the loose monetary policy of Quantitative Easing by the Federal Reserve. Supporters of QE say that it is required because there is so much slack in the economy. They say that we are far below the CBO projection of potential real GDP. Thus, the monetary […]
This post is a follow-up to the article by Felix Santana Garcia, The People Lie Helpless. Here are some photos of areas where the poor live in the Dominican Republic. Granted the poverty there is a result of many years of poor economic guidance in terms of marginal social benefits and marginal social costs. Their […]
I worked with Dwaine Van Vuuren of Recession Alert a few months ago on using the effective demand limit to detect recessions. He said the effective demand limit gave the best detection of a recession he had ever seen. He said he had seen hundreds. I want to show you one graph he came up […]
Menzie Chinn over at Econbrowser posted on low inflation today. His argument is that there is still lots of slack from real GDP being way below potential real GDP and from high unemployment. The idea is that abundant slack depresses prices. Inflation is generated as slack capacity is utilized. It’s the normal result of labor market […]
Although the July employment report was weaker than expected, it was still in line with recent experiences. The household survey reported employment gains of 204,000 while the payroll report showed a gain of 162,000 jobs. Average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls edged down by 2 cents to $23.98, following a […]
People need money. That is the purpose of the Fed’s loose monetary policy. But there is no transmission mechanism that gets money into the hands of people. Money is predominantly created in the economy through loans and credit from banks. Banks have to make loans or extend credit in order for people to have more […]
EPI’s Elise Gould reports on the impact of Social Security as a safety net keeping another 25 million people out of poverty.
This is an article published yesterday by an acquaintance of mine who lives in the Dominican Republic, Felix Santana Garcia. He writes a weekly article for an online newspaper there. (I translated the article from Spanish.) The People Lie Helpless By FELIX SANTANA GARCIA * The author is a financial manager and university professor. Living […]
If you listen to CNBC or read right wing blogs you would think that the Obamacare regulations that require large employers — over 50 full time equivalent employees –to provide their employees insurance or pay a penalty is leading to a massive shifting of employees from full time to part time. CNBC is constantly interviewing […]