Brad DeLong talks about how other economists view Fed interest rate policies as “price controls”. Then he makes a comparison to the present situation with on an example of a “price floor” in agricultural products. But are low interest rates a price floor or a price ceiling? If you think that interest rates need to […]
An economic slump or recession is considered a bad thing by economists. They point to Sweden and blame Sweden for raising its interest and causing a recession. “Bad Sweden, Bad Sweden”. But those economists are being short-sighted. They do not mention that Sweden is now doing much better than the rest of Europe. They have […]
The European Commission decided two of its major tax subsidy cases on Wednesday, October 21, and the rulings could not have been worse for Starbucks and Fiat (h/t Chillin’ Competition). These cases can be seen as a barometer of what is to come in the legally similar but much larger case of Apple, where potentially […]
Within an economy, there are different industries. and each industry would require a different central bank interest rate to function best. But there cannot be a different interest rate from a central bank for each and every industry. What happened when Sweden raised its interest rate? We hear that Sweden raised its interest rate a […]
With the earlier discussion of investments I thought a chart would be of interest. As you can see, investments grew until the Republicans started cutting taxes, supposedly to increase investments. (Cutting taxes to grow investments)
Way to rally the base Turtle Neck! NY Times: No Social Security Raises Even if Medicare Soars WASHINGTON — The 60 million people on Social Security will not receive any cost-of-living increase in their benefits in 2016, the government said Thursday, but because of a quirk in federal law, nearly one-third of Medicare beneficiaries could […]
Adair Turner was interviewed by INET about his new book which I have to buy and read. The book came out this week. It is called, Between Debt and the Devil. Here is the interview. (link) He lays out an exquisite analysis of economics on many layers. How the crisis was not expected due to […]
This has produced another edition of “Simple Answers to Simple Questions.” Just to expand this a bit, and to deal with the 1987 absurdity, the proximate cause of the 1989 adjustment—an adjustment of less than 10% in the Dow that only took two full calendar months to return to its level at close on 12 […]
by Joseph Joyce The External Debt of the Emerging Market Economies The outflow of money from emerging markets this year will most likely surpass inflows for the first time since 2008, and net capital outflows may total $541 billion according to the Institute of International Finance. The flows have been accompanied by currency depreciations, stock […]
When one hears talk about the Wicksellian natural rate of interest, one hears that a real rate below the natural rate will cause inflation and economic heating. Then a a real rate above the natural rate will lead to disinflation and economic cooling. “Wicksellian analysis is an older tradition; it argues that there is at […]