I’ve decided to say something nice about Larry – he’s actually has a proposal to cut $150 billion per year in Federal spending. I know – this is still far short of reigning in that massive General Fund deficit, but someone has to offer up something. Larry’s list is short and to the point. Cut […]

Did the Social Security deformers read Robert Schiller’s paper? This story from CNN suggests they may have: Hubbard told the Journal that 3 percent was chosen because that is what actuaries estimate will be the government’s cost of long-term borrowing, making the accounts “fiscally neutral.” “One could argue 2 percent is more appropriate. But that […]

Teeing off on Robert Samuelson (as did PGL), Mark Thoma echoes a point I’ve made before and adds an important caution: When I think of welfare, I think of pure money transfers from one group to another without any economic basis for the transfer. In such cases, one person’s gain arises from another’s loss. But […]

Their newswire release leads with: The 2005 Social Security Trustees Report was issued today, which indicated that the program’s financial condition is worse than previously expected. Club for Growth’s David Hogberg notes: Thus, it must have come as a surprise, if not a disappointment, when the 2005 report was released yesterday and it looked remarkably […]

Robert Samuelson’s latest on Social Security has been ably taken down by Mark Thoma and Max Sawicky. But this line from “no relation to Paul” has me wondering who his insurance agent is: In normal usage, insurance suggests protection against something you don’t expect to happen I expect to get sick on occasion and I […]

When the National Review makes the case for free trade, I have been know to applaud. The argument put forth by John Tamny, however, does not warrant applause: Buffett’s comments merit special attention in that it is precisely because the U.S. is moving away from low-value sharecropper jobs that the current-account deficit is so high….When […]

When I read Robert Schiller’s “The Life-Cycle Personal Accounts Proposal for Social Security: An Evaluation”, the third chapter of Mark P. Kritzman’s Puzzles of Finance, which is entitled “Time Diversification”, went to the top of my read pile. Let me suggest that Donald Luskin start with Mark’s primer at the end (Brad DeLong and Duncan […]

AB has been letting us know about a new blog from Mark Thoma. Mark’s chart of R&D relative to GDP reminds me of the debate between Paul Krugman and Bill O’Reilly. O’Reilly was trying to suggest that the Reagan tax cuts increased economic growth. Never mind the fact that savings and investment fell and that […]

Brad Setser, just returned from a 10 day trip to China, offers some very interesting thoughts today about China’s exchange rate policy as a result his conversations with various Chinese economists. The central dilemma Brad touches on is this: what type of growth strategy is best for China? Should they continue to follow the strong […]

Following up on yesterday’s PPI report, the BLS released its latest figures on consumer price inflation this morning: The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.6 percent in February, before seasonal adjustment, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. …On a seasonally adjusted basis, the CPI-U […]