I am just beginning an attempt to tranform the Northwest Plan for a Real Social Security Fix into a series of Tables and Figures (and original spreadsheets) that people can review at length. But since the authors were effectively accused of not really having numbers at all here is an advanced peek at some of […]
[Michigan Republican Senate candidate Terri Lynn] Land, a Byron Center Republican, had defended presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s anti-bailout position two years ago and noted that GM had become known as “Government Motors.” She declined to revisit the topic Wednesday during a brief exchange with reporters, which she cut short following the forum. “I’ve always supported […]
Via Economist’s View comes this note on ‘Unemployment Insurance and Disability Insurance in the Great Recession’ From the NBER Digest: The authors find very little interaction between UI benefit eligibility and SSDI applications, and conclude that SSDI applications do not appear to respond to UI exhaustion. While the authors cannot rule out small effects, they conclude […]
AMERICAN INEQUALITY WITH SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN and ECONOMIST THOMAS PIKETTY Boston, MA: This Saturday, The Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength will sponsor a landmark dialogue between Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and economist Thomas Piketty. Senator Warren is one of progressivism’s most admired and powerful leaders and–despite her “I’m not running” assertions–a top presidential pick for many […]
It has been the political right’s mantra of welfare and charity being best done by private organizations rather than be government sponsored. 50 years have passed since President Johnson declared war on poverty. It was declared an abject failure by the right as it did not make people independent nor did it make people want […]
Noah Smith has documented the “anti-Piketty crusade” by Tyler Cowen, Chairman and General Director of the Koch-brothers-funded Mercatus Center. (The post seems to have gone missing from Noah’s site [pourquoi?]; here’s Google’s cached version.) The latest from Cowen is here, joining in the right-wing chorus desperately trying to debunk the long and widely documented increase in wealth inequality (documented […]
Paul Krugman is pushing for a higher inflation target. Joseph Stiglitz pushed for it a couple of years ago and then put the issue on the shelf well, he is still talking about it. (source) Even as the ECB’s president, Mario Draghi, said at the ECB conference where Mr. Krugman is presenting his case for […]
I am probably not the only one to suspect that no matter how Second Amendment Friendly your local white-owned Southern retail establishment might be, there might be a little frisson (a Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey word) of fear when this group of “responsible gun owning” citizens simply exercising their Second Amendment Rights to open carry […]
What is Effective Demand? Keynes made it a central concept of his great General Theory book. But what is it? Well, the idea is that there is only so much demand in the population for products. And that low demand can keep the economy from reaching full employment. How does that work? Keynes pointed to […]