Paul Samuelson, 94 mostly-glorious years. And if you think he wasn’t doing much recently, check out the two-part interview with Connor Clarke—The Atlantic‘s real economics expert—here and here.

Households in the US and the UK are members of the “most levered club”. But put their balance sheets side-by-side, and the outlook for the US economy looks a little brighter than that for the UK. Why? Both are dropping debt burden, but a qualitative analysis suggests that the UK household leverage (probably) should be […]

Most of time when I write something, I sign it. A piece in the first Great American Baseball Stat Book. The first three editions of a book called Interest Rate Trends and Comparisons put out by the bank at which I worked in the late 1980s.* Review pieces in various publications. A piece in Institutional […]

Robert Waldmann One of the puzzling aspects of the European debate over how to increase financial regulation after the crash was the idea that hedge funds should be regulated more. This is odd as they didn’t destabilize the system. I just assumed the Europeans can’t stand unregulated people making huge amounts of money. Now I […]

Economists View has a note on the evolving ideas of what ‘financial’ reform looks like in Congress. It looks like de novo is back, and it was Barney Frank who pulled it in the first place. (h/t run) it appears Rep Frank put de novo branch banking back into the House Bill (HR4173) which just […]

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by Bruce Webb A bipartisan group of Senators is making a push to tie an increase in the debt ceiling to establishment of a Commission whose focus in on reducing the growth of entitlements. Now clearly Medicare spending growth at its current rate is not sustainable, which fact makes the current full-throated defense of that […]

by cactus I’ve noticed the issue of Obama blaming his predecessor for the poor economy has become a bit of a minor cause on the right. So I was curious as to whether there was precedent for this kind of thing. For how long can a president blame his predecessor for economic problems? I’m guessing, […]

China exported its way to a $2 trillion dollar fortress of F/X reserves ($USD mostly), while the US borrowed its way into a hole deep enough to spark a vast global recession. Who’s to blame? Given the symbiotic relationship in the chart above, it’s hard to blame any one individual, group, or even country. But […]