A Kennedy-Reagan-Trump Fiscal Policy? Heather Long reports that the White House economists have no clue about the history of U.S. fiscal policy: President Trump’s policies are driving an economic turnaround that puts him in the company of transformative presidents such as John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, White House economists said Wednesday as they unveiled their […]
Will Automation Kill Our Jobs? by Walter E. Williams appeared in the Gaston Gazette, Charleston Gazette-Mail, Daily Tribune, Frontpage Mag, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Townhall, Holmes County Times-Advertiser, National Interest, Rocky Mount Telegram and CNS News (not to mention the Dogpatch Völkischer-Beobachter). It features the following cutting edge (& pasting) analysis: People always want more of something that will create a job for someone. […]
Paying for Health Care Over Time Simon Wren Lewis illustrates the long-run government budget constraint with this tale: There are many reasons why, outside of a recession, deficits that, if sustained, would steadily increase the debt to GDP ratio may be bad for the economy, but let me give the most obvious here. For a given […]
Shorting China I just saw “The China Hustle” as part of the Portland International Film Festival. It’s a very (very) slick documentary about the listing of fraudulent Chinese companies on US exchanges during the post-financial crisis era. The companies were mostly real, but their financial data were fictitious, although given the stamp of approval by the SEC, […]
A Critical Review of Jeffrey Miron’s Call to Slash Entitlements I accused John Cochrane of incoherent babbling on the Federal deficit issue noting his update where he flip flopped: He went from fiscal policy being sober to we are in dire straights just like that! Oh my the sky is falling. We have to take away those […]
Via Naked Capitalism and published orinially at Grist Polar Ice Is Lost at Sea: Our planet reached another miserable milestone earlier this week: Sea ice fell to its lowest level since human civilization began more than 12,000 years ago. That worrying development is just the latest sign that rising temperatures are inflicting lasting changes on the […]
The Wall St. Journal quoted Peter Thiel’s business plans. It is mostly behind a paywall. Competition is for Losers If you want to create and canpture lasting value, look to build a monopoly, writes Peter Thiel By Peter Thiel Sept. 12, 2014 11:25 a.m. ET What valuable company is nobody building? […]
Fiscal Stability or Dire Straights: John Cochrane’s Latest Rant At times John Cochrane babbles on incoherently on what should be a straight forward issue. This post is one example: Once you net out interest costs, it is interesting how sober US fiscal policy actually has been over the years. In economic good times, we run primary surpluses. […]
Why I’m worried about the decline in real wages This is a follow-up to my post yesterday concerning the decline in real average and aggregate wages. Why should the data from just one month cause me to warn that “This is Bad?” To show you, let’s decompose the data into CPI and nominal aggregate wages, […]
This is bad: real wages *declined* in January; may be rolling over Consumer prices rose +0.5% in January. That in itself isn’t bad news, as they rose an equal +0.5% one year ago, so the YoY inflation rate remains at +2.1% (so if 2% really is a target rather than a ceiling, it should not […]