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

The Spitting/Splitting Moment: When Obama lost the New Dealers

by Bruce Webb There is a great deal of chatter these days about how Obama lost ‘Progressives’, what Robert Gibbs derisively called the ‘Professional Left’ or the ‘Left of the Left’, and as an example you could read this from Peter Daou How a handful of liberal bloggers are bringing down the Obama presidency and […]

Blue investing?

by Dan Crawford Institutional Investor reminds us of a vital area not in the news, but drawing enough committed money to attract even hedge funds. Angry Bear has carried posts on the 1989 experiment with privatization of water utilities in Britain, the strange world of WTO rules regarding water supply, ownership, and provision of sewerage, […]

Tax cuts paid for? With job creation? Can’t get there from here.

by: Daniel Becker This is a simple little exercise that frankly I wonder why no one with a pulpit (that would be you congress critters, executive office and MSM) has done it. It is for those who think simplistically. Thinking like:  wealthy people create jobs with their extra money and not the non-wealthy people’s demand for […]

Supply and demand is the law?

CASSE (Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy) carries this piece: Demand a Supply of Common Sense; Just Don’t Price Itby Brian Czech Ah, the confusion of economics students when they encounter the subject of supply and demand in introductory “micro.” They learn that prices are determined by supply and demand. Then they’re […]

HOW TO PAY FOR SOCIAL SECURITY

by Dale Coberly HOW TO PAY FOR SOCIAL SECURITYBALANCE THE BUDGET CUT THE DEFICITand REDUCE THE NATIONAL DEBT Big Numbers and Mental Hygiene We have been treated recently to a great deal of hysteria about “the deficit” and the huge horrible Burden of Social Security, including the mysterious Trust Fund: is it real? or only […]

Notes Toward Revealing a Housing Bubble in a Standard Economic Model

Let us first stipulate that houses themselves are unique entities, but similar enough that we can consider them comparable if not fungible. (In this, they are like any financial asset.) Let us further restrict them in acknowledging that there are significant transaction costs: one’s liquidity preference should not prefer housing to, say, cash-equivalents or marketable […]

Inequality as a critical cause of the financial crisis?

by Linda Bealecrossposted with Ataxingmatter Inequality as a critical cause of the financial crisis? As readers know, Ataxingmatter is premised on a concept that I have called “democratic egalitarianism.” that This is the idea that sustainable democracy requires forces that push economic and other resources towards a more equal distribution rather than permitting resources to […]

The money quandary

The Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, and the Bank of Japan are considering further quantitative easing. It’s an explicit statement, as with the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England, or implied by the fact that the foreign exchange intervention will eventually be sterilized if the policy rule is not changed, as with the […]

Beale/ NYT room for debate…Extending the tax cuts for the wealthy

by Linda Bealecrossposted with Ataxingmatter Extending the tax cuts for the wealthy–the discussion continues The New York Times asked me for my views of Robert Samuelson’s recent argument in the Washington Post that extending the tax cuts for the wealthy made sense because they would otherwise cut back their spending, tax cuts for them will […]