by Dale Coberlyan Op-Ed BRUCE KRASTING ASKS FOR MORE A few weeks ago Bruce Krasting published on his own blog an essay claiming that Social Security was going broke and that it would cause the economy to collapse, and the only possible remedy was to means test Social Security. I replied on Angry Bear that […]
by Linda Beale Obama’s FY 2011 Budget The Obama Administration released its FY2011 Budget proposals today which assumes a substantial amount of tax cuts (making the 2001-2003 Bush cuts permanent for most Americans costs about $3.75 trillion over ten years) and some tax increases to cover important programs (about $1.9 trillion), resulting in a substantial […]
Robert Waldmann This is a brief follow up on my post on measuring bubbles. The amount lost due to sub-prime mortgages in default is tiny compared to the damage done. How large can the ratio of damage to losses be ? My answer is it can be infinite — that it is possible for irrational […]
Ads were in the works, but their appearance today caught me not preparing readers for this event except for Bears. Sorry. Angry Bear is trying out the notion of a small revenue stream to help take care of expenses instead of our personal income. The time involved to keep the blog running involves much time, […]
The big news of Transfer Deadline Day was that Nathaniel Clyne turned down a move from The Eagles to The Wolves.* As The Guardian noted: [This] will please everyone at Crystal Palace who isn’t an administrator. Let’s look at the timeline and the reality. Palace was ninth in the Premier Championship [thanks to Tim in […]
by cactus Corporate Inefficiency When the Costs Are Imposed on Third Parties. Long time readers may recall that I had some issues with Norton Anti-Virus, which led to my uninstalling the thing from every computer I own (plus my mom’s computer) back in 2007. Planned obsolescence in the computer world being what it is, I […]
For those who were thrilled by the positive general prospects in Rebecca’s post, the WSJ presents words to die/foreclose by: If that seems at odds with the economy’s recent strength, keep in mind that the unemployment rate is usually one of the last places recovery shows up. Many of us are having trouble forgetting that, […]
Last week the IMF released its World Economic Outlook Update for the October 2009 forecast. The global economy is expected to grow 3.9% in 2010, an 0.8% upward revision. In fact, the 2010 growth projections were generally upward with little offset in 2011 (often when you get a surprise and positive economic release, the current […]
The Battle of Late January has ended, as Amazon yields, gracelessly: We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles. We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan’s terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over […]
Brad DeLong and John Cochrane agree on something. I must dissent. Delong and Cochrane agree that “The underlying decline in wealth from the housing bust was … around $400 billion. …” Indeed, relative to the size of the economy the losses during the crash of the dot-com bubble were four times as large. I object […]