by cactus The 1920s Depression: Glenn Beck, Thomas Woods, and “Benefits” of Cutting Taxes to Combat a Recession, Part 1 So I get an e-mail from reader Dean Moriarty, stating: Yesterday, I found myself in the sad position of inadvertantly listening to the Glenn Beck show. He was talking to some caller about how American […]
So there are several comments to my previous post. Ignoring the a good one from Dr. DeLong, several people are taking umbrage at my unsubtle suggestion that the effect on employment being suggested is, to be polite about it, rather creative. kharris begins, “So let me see if I have this right. If anybody tries […]
Today’s release by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas of October’s Trimmed Mean Personal Consumption Expenditure gives us a chance to check this “alternative measure of core inflation.” The clearest thing is that it does what the FRB Dallas intends: generally reduces the measure of inflation: For the graphic above, any value above the line […]
by Bruce Webb Don’t step in the Voodoo. Leap in U.S. debt hits taxpayers with 12% more red ink Yhe latest increase raises federal obligations to a record $546,668 per household in 2008, according to the USA TODAY analysis. That’s quadruple what the average U.S. household owes for all mortgages, car loans, credit cards and […]
by Bruce Webb Michael Lind wrote an interesting article for Salon that was picked up by the New America Foundation under the snappy title Let’s Cut Social Security to Pay for Banker Bailouts!. In it he outlines arguments that will be familiar to followers of Angry Bear’s Social Security coverage, notably pointing out the ‘message’ […]
by Bruce Webb Over the next couple of days I’ll be rolling out what I am tentatively calling the Northwest Plan for Fixing Social Security, ‘Northwest’ because the three current contributers happen to live in the Pacific Northwest. But before doing so I want to lay out some of the conceptual differences underlying various discussions […]
rdan NYT shouts out about Wagoner and GM. Chrysler must merge with Fiat? Wagoner needed to go in my opinion, but so do some of the bankers. When is that to happen? Perhaps Simon Johnson is more correct in his estimation of a captured financial/government combination than is discussed in detail to date. Here is […]
Robert Waldmann People are talking about regulating credit default swaps (CDS) . They include Collin Petersen D-Minn who proposes making it illegal to own a CDS without owning the underlying instrument (this is absolutely standard for other kinds of insurance). and George Soros who supports the proposal.(via Felix Salmon) A problem, I think, is that […]
There has been a great deal of recent discussion insisting that the various New Deal programs did not get this country out of the Depression, only World War II did that. And no one that I know of argues that the level of unemployment right through the 30’s was not unacceptably high. But I want […]
rdan Exclusive report Bloomberg continues the quest for information on US lending of $2 Trillion. The Federal Reserve refused a request by Bloomberg News to disclose the recipients of more than $2 trillion of emergency loans from U.S. taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral. Bloomberg filed suit Nov. 7 under […]