We provided a short answer to the Tyler Cowen test involving the Michael Mandel question on the importance of savings. James Hamilton takes our answer to the next level. Update: Michael Mandel accuses James Hamilton of being a “capital fundamentalist” who fails to understand the importance of investing in R&D and human capital. I’m afraid […]
John Tamny must not have liked this post emailing me to say: Believe me, I understand per capita and real. And don’t think for a second that I don’t see the obvious flaw in the household wealth argument: the dollar has fallen pretty substantially in the past year (though you don’t believe in measuring commodities […]
Brad Setser provides a link to “the IMF’s most recent paper on global imbalances” or chapter 2 of its World Economic Outlook: Global saving and investment rates have fallen and current account imbalances have widened to unprecedented levels, yet real long-term interest rates remain low in most countries. How did the global economy arrive at […]
James Hamilton begins and ends a good discussion of the latest news on consumer prices with: Does today’s CPI release indicate that inflation has returned? … Pick your poison, inflation or recession. Personally I’m more scared of the second. I want to return to a debate between Dick Cheney and John Kerry last summer as […]
The latest from Karl Rove’s attorney says it all: Rove’s defense team asserts that President Bush’s deputy chief of staff has not committed a crime but nevertheless anticipates that special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald could find a way to bring charges in the next two weeks, the source said. At the end of the day, […]
Suppose your company is considering purchasing another company and wishes to convince the Department of Justice (DOJ) that the benefits to shareholders come from efficiency-enhancing effects and not competition-reducing effects. One could hire a team of economists from a host of consulting firms such as these two. Or supposed you simply wished to learned how […]
When I began reading the latest from Greg Kaza, I thought “ho-hum, more NRO cheerleading”: Bearish critics overlook the dynamic spirit of American capitalism, its risk-taking entrepreneurs, and the economy’s resiliency. They also overlook broad indicators like the output of the nation’s mines, factories, and utilities (industrial production), and nonfarm employment, which both show an […]
This week’s news will probably be dominated by Wilma and Fitzgerald. And the top economic story will likely be Q3 GDP. But I’ll also be looking at the Existing Home Sales and New Home Sales reports for further clues of a housing slowdown. Expectations are for strong volumes for both existing and new home sales. […]
Since I have been on a bit of a tirade per this issue as to whether real wealth has been rapidly increasing, let me recommend a graph from Michael Mandel who writes: I like to keep track of what I call “real net household wealth”. That is, household net worth, subtracting out federal government debt, […]
I’m saddened to see that Bruce Bartlett has taken the low road: Apparently, this involves publishing articles by its editorial writers that are not good enough to appear in the print edition of the paper. The first of these articles appeared on October 4 and dealt with taxation. It was written by Times editorial board […]