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

What economics would you teach kids?

by jsalvati What economics would you teach kids? Rdan points to a ‘National Budget Simulation’ program that is apparently part of Massachusetts economics education for grades 4-12. I was surprised when I clicked on the link because the federal budget seems like a really strange place to start economics education. It seems important to start […]

Brad DeLong asks about the top ten econ blogs by net news wire

Brad DeLong asks: Here’s what NetNewsWire throws up as tops in attention in the “economics” category: Mark Thoma’s Economist’s View http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/ Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen’s Marginal Revolution http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/ Justin Fox’s Curious Capitalist http://time-blog.com/curious_capitalist/ Barry Ritholtz’s The Big Picture http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/ James Hamilton’s and Menzie Chinn’s Econbrowser http://www.econbrowser.com/ Angry Bear http://angrybear.blogspot.com/ WSJ Real Time Economics http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/ […]

Unobserved Country Heterogeneity: GDP Levels or Growth Rates

Have you ever noticed that, when considering the economic performance of different countries, people often just report the GDP growth rate without any corrections for e.g. initial GDP ? It’s as if they thought that countries generally have about the same growth rate and any deviation from the world average is interesting. This is very […]

The housing crisis in pictures

Your house in your eyes… Your house in the buyer’s eyes… Your house in your lender’s eyes 2005 Your house in your lender’s eyes 2008… Your house shortly before foreclosure…

Worth a listen

hat tip reader coberly Fresh Air from WHYY IraqIn Iraq, Tactical Theory Put Into PracticeLt. Col. John Nagl wrote the textbook on counterinsurgency — literally. Nagl was part of the team that drafted a U.S. Army field manual on counterinsurgency. Having completed his tour in Iraq, Nagl talks about how military theory was put into […]

Taxpayer subsidies for roads etc. vs. public transport

reader Laurie sends this great comment (lifted cactus style): My sister-in-law ***************************(director of a system in the US). Here’s the Q I sent her: How do taxpayer subsidies for private transportation (roads etc) compare to subsidies for public? Here’s her answer:Good question. Local roads and highways get much more than transit; the question is how […]

Senators Obama and McCain on Iraq

Hat tip to MG CBS – Senator Obama video and interview transcriptJuly 22, 2008 CBS – Senator McCain video and interview transcriptJuly 22, 2008

Tax Policy Center calls McCain campaign out for cheating.

by Robert Brad DeLong has a hot tip from Jason Furman I quote a bit of Brad’s quote of Furman Today, the Tax Policy Center released a new analysis of the McCain and Obama tax plans, which provides a comparison between what each of the candidates says on taxes (their actual plans) and what their […]

Household spending on fuel, food, drink

Hat tip to CoRev, who sent this two weeks ago. I owe you one sheesh. Update: Link to map is at IMF.(link fixed) The map is a rough sort of picture to consider the impact of bio-fuel development on food supplies. But then Jib in comments reminds us of additional complexities of trade in food.