The weather has been great in Phoenix for months, but even so, the housing market is slowing down. Nick Timiraos, Real Time Economics from the Wall Street Journal, has an article today that presents the Phoenix housing market as the canary in the coal mine. If the housing market in Phoenix cools down, then other […]
I just couldn’t skip this one…disinhibition and odd “metaphor” combined: Lynn Parramour writes: Thomas Ferguson and Robert Johnson of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, two economists who have tried to expose the problems in their field, remind us that even when you look at the evidence of recent reports of the trustees overseeing […]
From the New York Times According to the plaintiffs in the new case, the Supreme Court has not overruled a statutory precedent in an area in which Congress has been active since 1961, in a tax case. But lawyers for the defendants said the 1988 decision was entitled to “lessened precedential weight” because it was […]
I’ve decided to look at US economic aggregates using theory and statistical methods which were popular in the 1960s. I have long told students that the model of investment which best fits the data is the now ancient flexible accelerator. This is just a reduced form equation without theory. It just says that the ratio […]
Yes, potential output is lower than people thought, much lower. I have been saying for almost a year that potential output is lower. (link 1, link 2) Commentators on Mark Thoma’s blog thought I was nuts. Mark Thoma himself did not agree with me. Mark Thoma now offers one explanation to his class that the […]
Paul Krugman also comments on healthcare horror stories hooey: by Robert Waldmann More on Julia Boonstra Glenn Kessler noted that the latest ad presenting an alleged Obamacare victim doesn’t add up right. Koch funded “Americans for Prosperity” broadcast an advertizement in Michigan in which Julia Boonstra complained that her old insurance was cancelled due to […]
by Robert Waldmann What is the Opposite of a Weasel Word ? I need a metaphor and no one is answering at metaphor customer service. I need a nuancing partner for weasel word. A weasel word is a qualifier which makes a statement so weak it is unfalsifiable without making it sound like “I don’t […]
by Joseph Joyce Group Therapy Pop quiz: which U.S. policymaker said last week: “We can’t solve everyone else’s problems anymore” in response to foreign criticism of U.S. handling of what issue? a—Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, responding to criticism by foreign central bankers of the Fed’s tapering of its asset purchases; b—Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, […]