Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

House exempt from ethics education, lets change that.

So, I just got an email from my congressman letting me know that he has submitted a bill that would no longer exempt the House membership from annual ethics training.  Their staff is required to have such education, the Senate is required, but not the house.   He is also trying to get it into the rules […]

US investment, discounted profits and irrational exuberance

As promised below, I have written something about investment (warning google document) In the note, I calculate some variables related to discounted future profits. Here is a snip from the paper in which I define them. Standard micro founded models of investment are based on shareholder value maximization and assume that there are adjustment costs, […]

Investment

The topic of this post might be “procrastination.” I have written a bit about aggregate consumption in the USA and I keep telling myself to write something similar about investment. I never do. I am using this post as a pre-commitment device (sorry to use the blog for my personal problems).

Cynthia Lummis’s (Stunningly) Glib Fraud: A Follow-Up

Cynthia Lummis, a wealthy Republican House member from Wyoming, claims her husband passed away, thanks in part to Obamacare. Lummis cited the law as a major contributing factor to her husband’s demise. Instead of blaming her husband, who could easily have afforded the test (who elected to skip the necessary diagnostic), she blames the best […]

Policing and a culture of protect and serve

Dan here…In the middle and late eighties grants went out to train police on methods of intervention into domestic violence.  In my experience on the North Shore Boston, police chiefs seemed to agree this was the most dangerous situation officers faced on a routine basis.  There were also efforts to re-orient police departments to be […]

For Kevin Drum to Be "Expecting a Reasoned Critique of John Cochrane’s Claim Is Like Expecting a Reasoned Critique of the Claim that 2+2=5": Hoisted from Robert Waldmann’s Archives from a Year Ago

Brad DeLong points us to a archived posts by Robert Waldmann and Paul Krugman:   Robert Waldmann: Why does Fiscal Stimulus Work ?: “Ah, now: Kevin Drum wrote about something… …I know something about. He notes a post by John Cochrane and said he was licking his lips waiting for the Delong/Krugman demolition which, however […]

Cynthia Lummis’s (Stunningly) Glib Fraud

The big news story of the last 24 hours, of course, is the Senate Intelligence Committee’s sickening torture report.  But you might also have heard about Wyo. Rep. Cynthia Lummis’s dramatic statement yesterday as a member of Darrell Issa’s Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s Jonathan Gruber/Marilyn Tavenner Obamacare hearing. The purpose of the hearing […]

Thoughts on Investment, IS-LM & Effective Demand

Investment is an essential component of economic growth. Investment supports a healthy inflation rate by providing new money into the economy. What determines investment? Through the IS-LM model, we can understand interest rates and investment. The IS curve has its own model before it is incorporated into the IS-LM model. In that IS model, investment […]