Detroit Said to Reduce Swaps Debt by 25% in Deal With Banks . The swaps were a “bet” on the direction of interest rates. With the decline of variable interest rates, Detroit found itself owing to the banks. With the decreased credit rating to B2, the same as AIG, Detroit found itself at the mercy […]

Let me start by saying that I do not support the loose monetary policy of Quantitative Easing by the Federal Reserve. Supporters of QE say that it is required because there is so much slack in the economy. They say that we are far below the CBO projection of potential real GDP. Thus, the monetary […]

This post is a follow-up to the article by Felix Santana Garcia, The People Lie Helpless. Here are some photos of areas where the poor live in the Dominican Republic. Granted the poverty there is a result of many years of poor economic guidance in terms of marginal social benefits and marginal social costs. Their […]

I worked with Dwaine Van Vuuren of Recession Alert a few months ago on using the effective demand limit to detect recessions. He said the effective demand limit gave the best detection of a recession he had ever seen. He said he had seen hundreds. I want to show you one graph he came up […]

by Linda Beale Ways and Means–still distracting with false scandals GOP representatives Camp and Boustany are continuing to beat the dead horse of an IRS “scandal” connected with the way the IRS has attempted to efficiently filter new applications for 501(c)(4) status to provide extra scrutiny to the most likely groups to be engaged in […]

Menzie Chinn over at Econbrowser posted on low inflation today. His argument is that there is still lots of slack from real GDP being way below potential real GDP and from high unemployment. The idea is that abundant slack depresses prices. Inflation is generated as slack capacity is utilized. It’s the normal result of labor market […]

There has been a bit of breast-beating among the blogsphere about how CNN has become shite. A few weeks ago, it was All Zimmerman, even as trains crashed and wars broke out. (See here and here, for instance.) I’m just not convinced it has changed that much. As the Most Profound Philosopher of Our Generation […]

   Although the July employment report was weaker than expected, it was still in line with recent experiences. The household survey reported employment gains of 204,000 while the payroll report showed a gain of 162,000 jobs. Average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls edged down by 2 cents to $23.98, following a […]

by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt Health Care Thoughts: What is a “health care economist.” During the past three years I have met several young “health care economists.” Clearly this is a hot topic. I try to be helpful when appropriate, but I often become quite skeptical, and often subtly ask some questions to test expertise. The […]

by Linda Beale David Sirota Agrees with me on the Tax Reform “Secrecy” Scandal As I mentioned in an earlier post, Max Baucus has established a secret submission process for Senators to let him know what pet tax loopholes they want to retain (probably the ones that high-paid lobbyists representing corporations with operations in their […]