by Rebecca Wilder The Italian Economy Is Sliding Today I.Stat released the breakdown of Q1 2012 real GDP for the Italian economy. Weak external demand plus a precipitous drop in private sector spending dragged the headline real gross domestic product (GDP) 0.8% over the quarter (3.2% at an annualized rate). The highlights are the following: […]
The Italian Economy Is Sliding
Obama " Private Sector Doing Fine"
by Spencer England A couple of weeks ago President Obama said that the private sector was doing fine. Needless to say this was subject to much criticism from some sources. But is that criticism justified ? Let’s see what the data says. This chart of real business output compares output in the five long cycles […]
Which Spending Is Easier To Cut And By What Level Of Government?
by Professor Barkley Rosser Reposted from Econospeak with permission from the author Which Spending Is Easier To Cut And By What Level Of Government? Back from his break, our former co-blogger, Dean Baker at Beat the Press, takes down WaPo ed page editor, Fred Hiatt, for his pushing yet again for cutting Social Security because […]
Punishing Irresponsible Parents and Punishing the Children of Irresponsible Parents
by Mike Kimel Punishing Irresponsible Parents and Punishing the Children of Irresponsible Parents Not long ago, my wife came home a bit shocked. My wife has a small business: she buys houses, fixes them up, and puts renters in them. If I may brag about my wife a moment, I note she buys well, is […]
State revenue ‘surpluses’ as state economies improve and tax cuts
Via Truthout this article points us to a trend in some states that instead of ‘restoring’ state government funding for services such as teachers, firefighters, and police, tax cuts are implemented to “establish a different spending baseline from 2008” or that “a policy of tax cuts will foster economic growth to enhance revenue”. … state income and […]
QE 2 and breakevens
alternate title QE 2.MMMCCCLLXXIX as I am a bit obsessed. One of the many bees in my bonnet is the argument over whether the Fed’s QE 2 policy hinted, suggested, teased and announced August 10 2010 through November 3 2010 had much of an effect. My impression remains that it had remarkably little effect on […]
Is Globalization Good for America’s Middle Class? Part 1
by Kenneth Thomas Is Globalization Good for America’s Middle Class? Part 1 In this blog, I have frequently documented economic trends that have been bad for the middle class: Declining real wages, steadily falling bang for the healthcare buck, stagnant educational attainment, the gigantic cost of tax havens, etc. With this post, I want to […]
Let’s Play “You Be The Sucker!”
By Noni Mausa Let’s Play “You Be The Sucker!” Let’s see. Business and banks have heaps of money – and aren’t hiring, spending their money, or loaning it out. Meanwhile, a few million working-age Americans have no money and no work, and many are young, strong, highly trained and capable. Business is complaining that they […]
Dems Need to Pay Attention to Monetary Policy!
I’m not nearly the first to this party, but want to bring it up for my readers who may not be clued in to it. For the second year in a row, some of the best economics bloggers on the Web (this year: Matt Yglesias, Mike Konczal, Karl Smith, Lisa Donner), did a session at […]