I have had some trouble disagreing with anything written by Paul Krugman. Now I think I have a case. Also it was written in 2007 well into the shrill phase. In 1958 the New Zealand–born economist A.W. Phillips pointed out that there was a historical correlation between unemployment and inflation, with high inflation associated with […]

The last few weeks oil prices have been moving higher and few analysts seem to understand the full story. If there is any commodity that trades at a one world price it is oil.  So the recent weakness in West Texas Intermediate ( WTI)  is very unusual and stems from temporary bottlenecks.  Over the last […]

by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt Health Care Thoughts: ACA – reality sets in A letter from union leaders to Sen. Reid and Rep. Pelosi Dear Leader Reid and Leader Pelosi: When you and the President sought our support for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), you pledged that if we liked the health plans we have […]

Antonio Fatas wrote   Show me the modelMost of the commentary one reads these days about the negative consequences of the policies set by central banks (low-interest rate and quantitative easing) are not backed by any economic model that I know.[skip] But what is the economic model that can provide a theoretical justification to an environment where […]

Stepping back from the specifics/justice questions of the Zimmerman-Martin case for a minute can we take a look at the logical takeaways? One consistent story of the last few years is the push by the NRA and allies to allow Open Carry everywhere. Whether that be bars, college campuses, National Forests, a D.C. that previously […]

Edited from here I think this quote makes it clear that the rational expectations revolution was based on fraudulent intellectual history.  I don’t think it shows that the fresh water and new Keynesian schools of macroeconomics have made no useful advances during my lifetime (that is since 1960).  I’m sure they have made useful advances, […]

by Rebecca Wilder Chart for the day: Growing on Imports Or should I say barely contracting on imports. In the traditional sense, growth in imports does not make a whole lot of sense. Normal economies import and export things, such that statistical agencies subtract the dollar amount of things that are made in other economies but […]

by Rebecca Wilder  Follow up to yesterday’s post: Euro area consumption and Investment in Q2 2013 Yesterday I illustrated the unsustainable accounting growth engine of imports occurring in the euro area (EA). Today I’ll present more of a forward looking analysis on private domestic demand within the euro area: consumption and investment. If current levels of […]