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

Presimetrics in Parade Magazine

by Mike Kimel Presimetrics on, er, in Parade (Magazine) Cross-posted at the Presimetrics blog. For a long time, I knew the date that Presimetrics, the book I wrote with Michael Kanell, was going to be released – August 11. The date was recently pushed back later in the month. But, the other day some interesting […]

Job Creation Follow Up

For those interested in more information on job creation in the Employment Dynamics database these three article provide very good information. Cordelia Okolie, “Why Size Class Methodology Matters in Analyses of Net and Gross Job Flows.” July 2004 Monthly Labor Review Jessica Helfand, Akbar Sadeghi and David Talan, “Employment Dynamics: Small and Large Firms Over […]

WW II CIVILIAN REAL GDP

Standard analysis is that military spending for WW II provided the significant Keynesian stimulus that ended the depression. I have nothing new to add to that debate, but I recently looked at the data and found it somewhat surprising. The surprise was not in what happened to military spending as the military swung from 0.5 […]

Economists = Idiots? Part 1829

It was their idea, so it’s no surprise they like paying interest on reserves, even excess reserves: For quite a while, the Fed was quite happy to have that money on its books. Indeed, the power to pay interest on reserves was considered a key tool to keep control over all the liquidity the Fed […]

Small & Large Business Employment

CoRev brought up the claim that small firms account for 70% of job creation in the US economy. Several years ago the Small Business Administration and Census began an annual survey of employment by firm size. You can find the data here: http://www.census.gov/econ/susb/historical_data.html Here is a table of what the joint survey of employment by […]

H.R.4173.ENR…final answer

Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Enrolled Bill [Final as Passed Both House and Senate] – ENR) Bill Text111th Congress (2009-2010)H.R.4173.ENR Update: The link did work this morning, but was temporary it seems. I will correct the link and update again. Update: Link works to hyome page, then when at Thomas there is […]

The answer is the domestic private sector

Jim Hamilton used the Federal Reserve Flow of Funds data to present a question: who will buy “the additional $8 trillion in net new debt that would be issued over the next decade under the CBO’s alternative fiscal scenario.” I thought that the analysis was curious and too “partial”. If one believes the deleveraging story, […]

Are you better off than you were a year ago? 28 States Say No.

The WSJ Economics Blog, discussing June 2010 unemployment rates by state, uses the headline “Most Regions Show Improvement“* I suppose we should be encouraged by the headline and not look at the text: Washington, DC and 16 states recorded jobless rates in excess of 10%. North and South Dakota continued to have the lowest rates […]

Health Care Thoughts – Public Policy Dilemma

Tom aka Rusty RustbeltHEALTH CARE – PUBLIC POLICY DILEMMA Fifty years ago much mental illness treatment was done in-patient in state run facilities, and many of them were hellholes (One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest was probably too positive compared to what I saw early in my career). The de-institutional movement (starting in the late […]

Wonder why we can’t solve problems? Consider BP’s latest ad, what you heard and the word “risk”.

By Daniel Becker An ad I’ve been seeing recently aired by BP is promoting how much work they are doing to clean up the oil spill. It is designed to leave you feeling comforted that they are on top of it, they are cleaning it up in a massive effort. Say, 29 million gallons of […]