Debt Ceiling Consequences

Spencer England | July 27, 2011 11:39 am

If the debt ceiling is not raised at some point the US government will be unable to meet all of its obligations. I assume that they will make their interest payments and bond redemptions on schedule and the shortfall will be in paying social secutiry, medicare, military and other obligations. This will naturally impact aggregrate […]

Notes Toward Modeling a Risk-Free Rate with Default Possibilities

Ken Houghton | July 26, 2011 11:59 pm

Brad DeLong asks why it hasn’t been done, if it hasn’t been done. The biggest problem I can see is that you don’t know how insane the participants are—and that will have a major effect on how much damage is done when. Don’t get me wrong; the damage is already being done; it has been […]

Beware of Doug

Robert Waldmann | July 26, 2011 11:57 pm

GOP Delays Debt Limit Vote After Damaging CBO Score

Open thread July 26, 2011

Dan Crawford | July 26, 2011 11:10 am

House Server Update

Robert Waldmann | July 26, 2011 12:40 am

National Journal Reports When President Obama told Americans to contact their representatives to show support for his debt-ceiling plan, the response was so strong it knocked out several websites for leading GOP House members. National Journal checks at 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. of websites for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, House Majority Whip Kevin […]

Why Economists (On Average) are Terrible Forecasters

Dan Crawford | July 25, 2011 2:57 pm

by Mike Kimel Why Economists (On Average) are Terrible Forecasters My colleague, Rebecca Wilder, had a post at her site entitled Economists are terrible forecasters – why trust them anyway?. The reason why economists as a general rule are lousy forecasters is obvious: there are no penalties to being wildly wrong. Prominent examples abound. Dow […]

Let’s do this again soon

Robert Waldmann | July 24, 2011 6:04 am

Republicans are crazier than I imagine possible even taking into account the fact that they are crazier than I imagine possible. Concept due to Brad Delong It appears that the debt ceiling deal under consideration includes $ 1 trillion in cuts, no tax increases and setting up a committee to pretend that there will be […]

Open thread July 23, 2011

Dan Crawford | July 23, 2011 11:54 pm

Requiescat in Pace, That’s All She Wrote

Ken Houghton | July 23, 2011 10:15 pm

(cross-posted from Skippy, The Bush Kangaroo. Just because.)

The US economy: July’s not looking any better

Rebecca Wilder | July 23, 2011 4:34 pm

US/Global Economics

Next week the Bureau of Economic Analysis will release its estimate of Q2 US GDP growth. Of 69 economists polled, the bloomberg consensus is that the US economy grew at a 1.8% annualized rate spanning the months of April to June over January to March. In all, this quarterly growth rate implies just 1.9% annualized […]