Paul Krugman has a post talking about how tighter monetary policy caused Sweden to go into deflation. Here is the chart showing their deflation. OK… we can see the deflation there far to the right. Paul Krugman talked about Sweden raising the interest rate to battle bubbles. Let’s look at the interest rate in Sweden. […]
I just watched the debate between Mark Thoma and Steve Williamson. (youtube video) As I see it, the main issue was the direction of causality in the Fisher equation. In the end, I agree with Mr. Williamson. The basic Fisher equation is… Real rate = nominal rate – expected inflation As the real rate is […]
No, I’m not talking about Piketty hitting the Times bestseller list. And it’s not just wild-eyed lefty Frenchman who are expressing concern about the state of world capital these days. Mitt Romney’s shop was beating this drum loudly more than a year ago. One of the central takeaways from Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century is […]
“There is no right more basic in our democracy than the right to participate in electing our political leaders.” That’s how Roberts began the opinion. So I guess we can now assume that the Court will strike down all those voter-ID laws that so clearly impact that most basic of rights, and will do so […]
In case anyone is interested, I put together a lot of stuff I have been doing with inflation expectations into a soft of manuscript here (warning 19 poorly written pages) The conclusions Inflation expectations are not anchored. A simple regression model fits both the median Livingston Survey respondent’s expected CPI inflation and five year TIPS […]
David Zetland at Aguanomics mentions a very local proposition by yours truly as part of a question posed on UN world water day March 22. Purely anecdotal and personal, but I found people willing to chart water use but not to go downstairs and turn off the water as a thought experiment. It was an […]
You may have read that health care spending in the private sector picked up both in the fourth quarter of 2013, and during the first two months of this year. Recent data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) show that during the last three months of 2013 spending on health care rose at an […]
Last week, the Senate Press Gallery denied SCOTUSblog’s application for a press pass, and advised us that it would refuse to renew the credential it had previously granted Lyle when it expires next month. We were disappointed in that decision, and we are grateful for the support that we have received through social media, emails, […]
Of course Carter’s approach to dealing with energy did not consist only with eliminating the insane regulation keeping US crude oil prices below world crude oil prices. Totally aside from (and opposite too) freeing the market, he also subsidized potential new sources of energy. As I recalled correctly, he focused particularly on “shale oil” and […]