A while back I pointed to (and demonstrated with not very pretty pictures) Randall Wray’s rather stunning observation: every depression in American history was preceded by a large decline in nominal federal debt. And I puzzled about why this wasn’t true of our latest little…event:   We saw a decline leading up to 2000, but […]

 In this post, earlier today, I forgot to link to this article over at Naked Capitalism. The salient point is, that specifically for investors, spending is related exclusively to income, never to wealth. It goes on to posit that QE and monetary policy are killing demand.  As Steve would say, “Go read it.”

Noam Chomsky writes on the anniversary of Howard Zinn’s death: Howard’s remarkable life and work are summarised best in his own words. His primary concern, he explained, was “the countless small actions of unknown people” that lie at the roots of “those great moments” that enter the historical record – a record that will be […]

I haven’t posted on Nick Hanauer and Eric Liu’s stuff, and I should have, long ago. Nick, along with Bill Gates Senior, was one of the big proponents of the Washington State high-earner income tax initiative a while back (which failed utterly, I’m sad to say). As was I, in my little way. I think […]

Eric Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAffee have a new Kindle instant book out, Race Against the Machine, that very nicely describes the issues related to technological unemployment. It’s well-written, content-packed, cogently argued, usefully hyperlinked, and well worth the $3.99 they’re asking.But I think there’s one crucial topic they don’t address, highlighted by the following.They deliver a […]

Usually my articles present facts and data and try to drive down to a conclusion. This time, I’m going to drive down to a couple of questions. Recently, Noah Smith had a post on the subject of economic models titled Filling a hole or priming the pump?  It did quite a bit to restore my […]

But Gingrich seems to have noticed that the key to his South Carolina landslide last weekend was overwhelming support from blue-collar and middle-class Republican voters. With those making between $30,000 and $50,000 a year, Gingrich crushed Romney by 20 points. With those making between $50,000 and $70,000, the margin was 16. But at the top […]

by Rebecca Wilder European Daily Catch: Know Your Consumers Today’s European Daily Catch compares the aggregate implications of the reported January 1-point rise in French household confidence to the reported January stabilization of Italian consumer confidence. Specifically, French consumers could be ‘happier’ but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re spending more, while Italian household confidence translates rather […]

by Dale Coberly SOCIAL SECURITYHow They Lie To Us The Wall Street Journal in the article Newtitlement State is unhappy with Newt Gingrich’s plan to privatize Social Security. Not only does it know that “privatization” failed when Bush offered it to the country, but they understand that most elected Republicans have distanced themselves from private-account carveouts […]

I think (after a lot of effort) that I’ve internalized Nick Rowe’s modeling of this question (follow links from here) pretty well conceptually. His answer is Yes. There have been thousands of posts and comments across the blogosphere since Nick took Krugman to task on the issue a couple of weeks ago, and Nick has […]