by New Deal democrat         (re-posted with permission from Bondadd blog) Sadly, Ed Yardeni is the Wanker of the Day – wage stagnation edition Dr. Ed Yardeni has some clickbait up at his blog titled, The Wage Stagnation Myth. Yardeni is a highly-regarded financial markets analyst, but this is just sad. He writes […]

by Dale Coberly VERY SHORT POST ON SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY INSURANCE The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has issued a “call for papers” with suggestions for “fixing” SSDI. I expect that by “fixing” they mean cutting people off and getting them back to work. After all, even people on IV’s could work as telephone […]

Mark Thoma wrote today that the Fed should not raise rates too soon, because… “If the Fed raises rates too soon, it is working class households who will be hurt the most by the slower recovery of employment.” His thinking is not deep enough. He just sees that a rise in the Fed rate will […]

Jared Bernstein has offered a muscular and cogent response to my recent take-down of his CAP paper on inequality and growth. (I called it “week-kneed.”) I’d like to respond to his many excellent points in just two ways. 1. My critique is primarily of his rhetoric, not his reasoning. Progressives, IMO, should be shouting the manifest reality […]

Matt Bruenig and Demos have thrown down the gauntlet against libertarian ideology. Trevor Burrus at Cato has picked it up. Should be worth tuning in. Matt pulls no punches. He’s emerged in the last year as one of the mediasphere’s most convincing voices for progressive ideas and policies, based (IMO) on air-tight arguments and thinking, backed by solid, well-presented facts and […]

I’ve said many times: every economic assertion should be preceded by the words “by this measure.” For big economic questions, you need to look at lots of different measures, lots of different way, to get a feel for what’s going on. This has come home to me as I’ve considered Jared Bernstein’s ongoing takedown of […]

Dan here…Via Sandwichman at Econospeak comes William Rees’s response to Paul Krugman’s post on “the prophets of climate despair”: “In theory GDP growth could continue indefinitely – if it weren’t linked to something real.” William Rees, who along with Mathis Wackernagel developed Ecological Footprint analysis, commented on Paul Krugman’s flippant slur on “degrowth” as an […]

Dan here…I am no expert of the in and outs of private money moving to renewable strategies instead of relying on fossil fuels. The branding of climate change activism as demonstrated by the march in New York City and the move to “divest, reinvest” movement of money has begun to gain more momentum. sort of […]

In a speech this week, the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Charles Evans, made a case for keeping the effective Fed rate low well into the foreseeable future. He concluded… “To summarize, I am very uncomfortable with calls to raise our policy rate sooner than later. I favor delaying liftoff until I […]

Remember Iceland? During the high-flying early 2000s, its three main banks went berserk, paying high interest rates to international investors that accumulated deposits equal to more than 100% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and making loans equal to 980% of GDP. When the collapse came, Iceland took a route not taken by Ireland, […]