Barry Ritholtz has a post showing that rates are very low in many countries. He isn’t quite sure what is going on with such low yields on 10-year bonds, so he asks… “What is up with Yields?” Maybe we could say that there is lots of liquidity out there. Maybe we could say that there […]
Brad DeLong quotes Joseph Stiglitz and notes that Stiglitz disagrees with Keynes Stiglitz said a peculiar doctrine came to be accepted, the so-called “neoclassical synthesis.” It argued that once markets were restored to full employment, neoclassical principles would apply. The economy would be efficient. We should be clear: this was not a theorem but a […]
Novice Tea-bagger Representative candidate Dave Brat just handed Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor a defeat in the Virginia GOP primary. A $200,000 campaign fund challenging a 6-digit campaign fund. Apparently, Cantor was not backwards, conservative enough for the 7th District Tea-baggers. “‘There needs to be a change,’ said Joe Mullins, who voted in Chesterfield […]
Many macroeconomists use models of aggregate consumption based on utility maximization by a rational representative agent. Some models also include liquidity constrained or rule of thumb consumers, but all micro founded models include inter-temporal substitution subject to a lifetime budget constraint. It is also standard to assume that utility is additively separable in consumption and […]
I have seen the top of the Dow Jones index as 16,800, but when the ECB loosened monetary policy to an extent never before seen last week, the Dow Jones lofted over 16,800. It is now hovering below 17,000, but there are concerns that it should not loft higher. I refer to an article by […]
Via the IMF comes this interesting note: Managing the revenue from natural resources—what’s a Finance Minister to do? By Sanjeev Gupta and Enrique Flores The Finance Minister answers her mobile. On the line is the Minister of Energy, who informs her that the country has struck oil and that he expects revenues from its sale […]
I’m posting this here as a topical subject. It may not seem economics related, but to me it is as it speaks to trust. There is no way a nation can continue to produce $16 trillion dollars a year and not have trust as a basic position to starting all conversations. No nation built on […]
The Real News Network interviewed 2 scientists about a new study on current extinction rates. The scientists interviewed are Dr. Terry Root & Dr. Stuart L. Pimm. The study shows that extinctions are occurring much faster than previously thought and that within 100 years, one third to one half of all species could be extinct. […]
When I was a newbie Social Security commenter and then blogger back in the 1999-2004 era there was a day I only half faceticiously called “The Bestest Day of the Year at Webb House!”. Yes it was Social Security Report Release Day which came out like literal clockwork on March 31st, so much so that […]