Antonio Fatas writes that the central bankers are estimating smaller output gaps in Europe, the UK and the US. I have been saying for a year that potential GDP is far less than the CBO estimate. But other economists have been sticking to the claim that the output gap is still quite large.  Economists do […]

Ryan Avent’s excellent post at The Economist finally provides me the impetus to respond to Josh Mason’s comments on my recent post. I suggested:  What we have instead of a Global Savings Glut is: 1. A Global Labor Glut: more human effort and ability available than is needed to provide goods that provide high aggregate […]

by Joseph Joyce Been There, Done That     President Barak Obama has nominated Stanley Fischer to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Board, where he will succeed Janet Yellen as Vice-Chair of the Board. Fisher’s accomplishments are well-known. But he also brings an interesting set of credentials to the Board at a time […]

Be my valentine     More below the fold

In a post 3 days ago, I referred to an article by Doug Short on his graph for the ratio of initial unemployment claims to the civilian labor force. He made the point that the ratio may have already hit a trough. If that turns out to be true, weekly initial unemployment claims will trend […]

Good Jobs First’s new report, Show Us the Subsidized Jobs, is its third assessment of state subsidy transparency, following up on reports published in 2007 and 2010. The good news is that transparency continues to spread: From 23 states in 2007 to 37 in 2010 to 47 plus the District of Columbia in 2014.* The […]

I have a student in Mozambique, Africa, who is doing an essay on how to create real economic growth among the general population. His main thesis was… “The Strenth of a man is determined by his ability to rise when he falls” I asked him to change his thesis to this idea… “The Strength of […]

I have a student in Afghanistan. He reports that capital flows are disrupting business there. He says that foreign and domestic money is leaving the country. The most important thing he tells me is that businesses are not paying wages. Many businesses have not paid wages in the past 3 months. He says that many […]

RB Energy describes the problems with commercial and residential propane markets: We’ve been talking a lot over the past year about the need for increasing exports to balance the U.S propane market as growth in production from gas processing plants outruns domestic demand.  U.S. propane production from gas processing has increased by over 100 Mb/d […]

The growth rate of the U.S. population has been in a generally downward trend since the post-war baby boom peaked in 1957.  Graph 1 shows the YoY percent change in the total population. Graph 1 – U.S Population Growth since 1952 The precipitous growth rate drop through the sixties came to an abrupt halt in […]