These are the usual confused thoughts mostly stimulated by this excellent post by Simon Wren-Lewis You really should click the link and read that post. I will try to summarise it. First professor Wren-Lewis argues that monetary policy would not have offset less contractionary fiscal policy in the past 6 years, because short term safe […]

I was never aware of what impact I had over the years in my family until my youngest son reminded me of what I had done on an evening in a store called Woodman’s located on the west side of Madison, WI. I was out of work and I was busy supplementing my income by […]

To be sure, after distancing himself from Romney’s formulation, Bush launched into a speech that was loaded up with the usual anti-government boilerplate. Bush did say that “only a small portion” of Americans are “riding the economy’s up escalator,” in keeping with his apparent goal — which is shared by other GOP presidential candidates — […]

After Republican 2016 hopefuls spent a day struggling to finesse the vaccination debate, the 67-year-old Clinton weighed in roughly an hour before midnight: “The science is clear,” she tweeted late Monday. “The earth is round, the sky is blue, and #vaccineswork. Let’s protect all our kids. #GrandmothersKnowBest.” — Hillary Clinton, grandma-in-chief, Gabriel Debenedetti, Politico, yesterday […]

Basic income in a Dauphin Manitoba. Less boring headline ? Social Welfare Programs and the Culture of Dependency III. Click the link. Note that just giving poor people money causes increased high school enrollment.

FISCAL YEAR 2016 ANALYTICAL PERSPECTIVES OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT (406pp PDF) For those not familiar with it the Analytical Perspectives is a companion to the President’s Annual Budget and is a massive compilation of Tables and Figures and explanatory material on all aspects of the economy and of government operations as they pertain to the […]

Jonathan (FBD) Weisman hands the mike to Paul Ryan who denounces Obama’s trickledown envy economics Mr Ryan [skip] also opposed “envy economics,” a hit on Mr. Obama’s proposals to curb tax breaks on huge individual retirement accounts, to raise the capital gains tax and to tax inheritances based on the value of assets when they […]

Tbe Italian parliament has elected Sergio Mattarella president of the republic. For US readers, the Italian President is like the constitutional monarch of the parliamentary republic. Actual controversial decisions are made by the prime minister (now Matteo Renzi). The president has great power in theory on the understanding that it is used only of the […]