rdan Reader Laurie sent this note from an NPR Morning Edition. The following quoted section caught her attention, and she wondered what was wrong with the explanation. It made me wonder if other readers had similar questions, even though we have covered part of the question of nationalization (as have Roubini and Krugman) here, here, […]
Matthew Yglesias doesn’t share the common view that gerrymandering has caused congress to be more partisan. He notes a recent paper (pdf here) by Princeton’s Nolan McCarty, UCSD’s Keith Poole, and NYU’s Howard Rosenthal and quotes a bit and I quote a bit of that bit Both pundits and scholars have blamed increasing levels of […]
By Spencer. The drop in industrial production is approaching the worse in the post WW II era. The index with 100= peak current ….90.11957-58…86.61974-75…87.01981-82…90.6 So only the 1958 and 1974 industrial production declines are more severe than the current downturn.
by Bruce Webb In comments there were requests for a clear unitary narrative summing up my view of Social Security. This is more difficult than it sounds because of the competing narrative is so simple and compelling: Boomer retirement hits Social Security, the latter itself goes ‘Boom’, lets do something now to mitigate the blow. […]
What my brain wants to do: Bank capitalisation, stress testing, book value, and discussion of other data that clearly indicates the need for the nationalisation of several LARGE banks. What my brain is currently capable of doing: The cheerleader who saves the world? Hayden Pantierre (Heroes) George W. Bush (ex-President of the USA) Christy Carlin […]
rdan Economist’s View carries a post at VoxEU by Mike Elsby, Bart Hobijn, Aysegul Sahin. This especially caught my attention: Figure 1 also highlights a curious fact absent in popular discussions of the crisis. Unemployment in the US had already begun to ramp up in early 2007, long before the official recession start date in […]
guest post by run75441 Occasionally, I have raised the issue of Participation Rate in decline since Oct/Nov 2001 or the official end of the 2001 recession. Participation Rate is the ratio between the Civilian Non Institution Population and Civilian Labor Force in the BLS Household Unemployment Report. From 1970 until 2001, the overall trend has […]
Robert Waldmann Arnold Kling states a widely held view succinctly I see elite Democrats as exploiting “the poor” in order to pursue their own drive for power. People who genuinely care about the poor work with the poor and give their own money to the poor. Liberals mostly just pose about caring for the poor […]
by Bruce Webb People in comments on some of the previous threads have what are on the surface reasonable questions. These questions fall in part into two categories. Some long time followers of the Angry Bear Social Security series ask ‘Why are you still talking about this, we get it already’. While newcomers ask (and […]
By Spencer Much is being made of the recent bottoming of the Dry Ships Index of bulk cargo rates. Everyone assumes it is a signal of stronger demand. But there are two reasons the index could be bottoming. One is stronger demand. But the other could be falling supply as the index represents theloss minimization […]