In many ways, [Clinton] did a good job at her press conference on Tuesday. The part of her speech talking about her daughter’s wedding and her mother’s funeral arrangements being off limits, that certainly resonated. She absolutely was right when she said, “No one wants their personal e-mails made public.” — Hillary Clinton Is Turning […]
by New Deal democrat The Phillips curve in 3 dimensions, animated – Yesterday I wrote that the Phillips curve might best be considered as three-dimensional, where the third axis was commodity prices, and in particular Oil. A shock to underlying commodity prices would also “shock” the unemployment vs. inflation trade-off, moving the curve along the […]
by Joseph Joyce Global Stability, National Responsibilities The global financial crisis demonstrated clearly how the flow of money across borders could deepen and widen a financial crisis. A decline in U.S. housing prices led to a re-examination of the safety of financial securities based on them and an implosion in credit markets as financial institutions […]
by New Deal democrat The Phillips curve in the 21st century (or, The Phillips curve as a 3 dimensional foil) This is my third post about the possibility of the Fed raising rates as early as June. In the first post, I pointed out that both wage growth and inflation are at historic, half-century lows. […]
The 47 senators who wrote their absurd ignorant improper and (almost) unprecedented letter in an attempt to undermine Nuclear negotiations between Iran and the (5)+1 are not traitors. The Constitution defines treason “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and […]
If the Fed raises interest rates and marginal companies are pushed into struggling for survival, is this a bad thing? Won’t we lose jobs? Won’t wages be hurt? Well, the question is… Are the healthier companies (those that can better survive a higher Fed rate) willing to make employees happier? Well, we now have a […]
The Ezra Kleinless wonkblog remains excellent. In particular Matt O’Brien is about as young, smart, witty, and hard working as Klein. However, I think he may not have read everything. He notes that the allegedly reformicon tax plan includes the Bush tax cuts for the rich on steroids. Then he reviews recent, but only recent, […]
The Census Bureau had a press release this morning announcing that nominal retail sales fell -0.6% in February, the third consecutive fall. Wall Street economists,analysts, strategists and managers have been watching these weak retail sales reports and speculating on why the drop in oil prices has not lead to the boost in consumer spending that […]
The Flow of Funds report from the Federal Reserve came out today for the 4th quarter of 2014. Non-financial business debt grew quite fast. “Non-financial business debt rose at an annual rate of 7.2 percent in the fourth quarter, a somewhat larger increase than in the previous quarter. As in recent years, corporate bonds accounted […]