Robert Waldmann Kevin Drum writes Nicholas Tabarrok (brother of Alex) is a producer of small indie films. But he’s frustrated because there’s no way for him to increase his audience by lowering the price to see his pictures: When I make, say, an $8M film it has to compete at the same price level as […]

Robert Waldmann Does anyone hate the limit on comment length as much as I do ?Kharris had a very interesting comment on a post of mine below. I wrote a long reply.I can’t post that reply in the comment thread so Kharris’s comment and my reply are is after the jump. Warning amateur philosophy of […]

Robert Waldmann There is a surprising consensus for having a public option but allowing states to opt out. Paul Krugman likes the idea Josh Marshall likes the idea (and notes that Sen Schumer likes the idea) DailyKos frontpager McJoan likes the idea In that post Mcjoan also notes that Max Baucus and Howard Dean support […]

cross posted with Gavin Kennedy Rdan here…Gavin Kennedy in his blog Adam Smith’s Lost Legacy notes how the ‘invisible hand’ is used in modern economics and especially the media, and begins to lay out the challenge. The entire post follows: Monday, October 05, 2009 A Research Agenda “Even Adam Smith, the canny Scot whose monumental […]

Robert Waldmann Look everyone is bored with this but I promised an e-mail correspondent that I would write about it. I can’t force myself to read Cochrane, but I obviously just read Fox’s quotes of Cochrane. I think I have something new to add to the pointless discussion of professor Cochrane. Warning: I go too […]

Robert Waldmann Justin Fox writes That in itself is an interesting switch, and I wish Krugman had more directly confronted his transformation from guy who extolled “the scientific-mathematical outlook that is arguably the true glory of our civilization” to guy who writes that “the economics profession went astray because economists, as a group, mistook beauty, […]

I was trying to avoid mentioning this, partially because I half-suspected it was deliberately over the top, and I’m not reading tone well these days. After all: Virtually every BHC has elected to become an FHC. Under 12 U.S.C. § 1843(k)(4)(H), FHCs are allowed to make “merchant banking investments” in nonfinancial companies, on a principal […]

by Bruce Webb CBO letter to Baucus Estimated Budgetary Impact of the Amended Chairman’s Mark According to CBO and JCT’s assessment, enacting the Chairman’s mark, as amended, would result in a net reduction in federal budget deficits of $81 billion over the 2010–2019 period (see Table 1). The estimate includes a projected net cost of […]

by RebeccaCross posted from Newsneconomics These are interesting times in global economics, especially from the policy perspective. And although there was a sense of global urgency across the G7 (Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, UK, and US) and the G5 (Brazil, People’s Republic of China, India, Mexico, and South Africa) late in 2008 and early […]

by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt Medicaid Dilemmas – Part 1 Medicaid is a federal/state program covering poor people, with general services for all ages and long-term care (nursing home) services for the indigent elderly. State budgets are extremely tight, and many states are cutting reimbursements, including nursing home reimbursements. The majority of long-term nursing home […]