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

A nice, concise history of climate science

Skeptical Science offers a nice, concise history of climate science: Two Centuries of Climate Science: part one – Fourier to Arrhenius, 1820-1930 Two Centuries of Climate Science: part two – Hulburt to Keeling, 1931- 1965 Two Centuries of Climate Science: part three – Manabe to the present day, 1966-2012 (h/t reader Jan)

Free market economics and Manchester University

Via the Guardian, Orthodox economists failed market test After all, the large majority of economists who predicted the crisis rejected the dominant neoclassical thinking: from Dean Baker and Steve Keen to Ann Pettifor, Paul Krugman and David Harvey. Whether Keynesians, post-Keynesians or Marxists, none accepted the neoliberal ideology that had held sway for 30 years; and all understood that, […]

Frances Coppola on repressing domestic demand… globally

The one thing I love about Frances Coppola, who is an economist from the United Kingdom, is that she is a perfect blend of someone inside the box and yet outside the box. I truly appreciate how she balances the two with an open and creative, yet grounded mind. She wrote a terrific article, The […]

Secular Stagnation and Fiscal Policy

The latest thing is discussing the possibility that the economy might be in a liquidity trap for a long long time or might repeatedly fall into one. So I ask what about some permanent fiscal stimulus to deal with secular stagnation. Now this question is an offence against Keynes and, much more, against new Keynesian […]

Productivity still very much stalled against the effective demand limit

Just a quick update to the productivity chart. (quarterly data, link to data) What does this graph show? When the economy is approaching the effective demand limit (red line), productivity stalls. Then a move toward an economic contraction will release a productivity increase. Note: The red line is the effective demand limit, where real GDP […]

How is your retirement nest egg progressing?? 14.5 million? Fix the Debt and Business Rountable

CEOs at the forefront of the drive to slash Social Security possess personal retirement funds worth an average of $14.5 million, and three have nest eggs worth more than $100 million. That’s according to a new report by two Washington-based research groups – the Institute for Policy Studies and the Center for Effective Government. Fix the Debt is […]

Krugman does not share labor’s share

Mr. Krugman wrote about a possible permanent slump and declining demand. He sort of offers two possible causes of it. Slowing population growth. Persistent trade deficits He does not even mention the big drop in labor share since the crisis. Yet, we see profound economists like Michael Pettis using labor share to describe the trade […]

Krugman and Waldmann

Paul Krugman picks up on Angry Bear Robert Waldmann’s post  “Why Does Fiscal Stimulus Work? ” discussing John Cochrane’s ideas on Keynesians. So some props to John Cochrane for at least trying to catch up. Unfortunately, he’s still working from the baseline assumption that people like me (and Mike Woodford, whom he really should be reading) must […]