When I read Duncan Black’s latest Wanker, I began to wonder if David Brooks had mastered the technique known as the Vulcan Mind Meld. Greg Mankiw’s lead paragraph reads: Harvard University is, by some measures, one of the most left-wing institutions on the face of the earth. So you may be surprised to hear that […]

Donald Luskin is pushing this paper from Thomas A. Garrett and Russell M. Rhine as proof we should support Bush’s Social Security proposals. Their paper tells us two things we already knew: the expected return on stocks exceeds the risk-free rate but actual returns may vary. And one would do better if one did not […]

“Record” seems to be the favorite term for CNN of late: household wealth yesterday and record export demand today. It is true that exports have risen in nominal terms and are even higher than they were in 2000 after adjusting for inflation. Exports, however, are only 10% of GDP now versus 11.2% for 2000. BEA’s […]

The Club for Growth Social Security blog has some funny finance. Andrew Roth pushes Cato’s Daily Debunker, which wants you to believe that you get a better return if you own your Social Security retirement funds. I’ll skip my usual Barro-Becker sermon of why this is funny finance and just go to this story highlighted […]

So says this story: WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Rising real estate prices and a resurgent U.S. stock market pushed the net wealth of American households to a record high in the fourth quarter of 2004, the Federal Reserve said Thursday. In its quarterly “Flow of Funds” report, the central bank said household balance sheet values rose […]

Prof. Mark Thoma at the University of Oregon has a nice collection, presumably expanding over time, of Social Security articles and information on his web page, including a working paper, The Economics of Social Insurance and Personal Accounts under Social Security Privatization (pdf). I’m extremely busy lately (sorry for the infrequent posts), so I haven’t […]

is the title of this paper by Kent Smetters, which is my way of saying thank you to William Polley for refereeing the debate between a Dead Parrot (Victor) and the Baby Angrybear (that’d be me). Kent’s paper puts the 2018 v. 2042 debate into a nice context both theortetically and historically. Kent also presents […]

The nation’s major lenders (esp. the big credit card issuers and auto finance companies) will reap significant returns on the investments that they have made in the form of campaign contributions to members of Congress (particularly Republicans). In return for a few million dollars in contributions, lenders are being rewarded with passage of the bankruptcy […]

The Dead Parrot responds to my contention that the 1983 Soc. Sec. reforms prefunded the baby boomers retirements: Ok, I’ll say it. The 1983 reform and Trust Fund didn’t work. The payroll tax led to increased government spending (although the excess tax revenue under Reagan wasn’t terribly large). But more critically, the IOUs in the […]

David Altig summarizes some of the (unfair) comments on Cranky Brad You might get a sense of why this is unfair by skipping my comment and going straight to Brad’s right after mine. But on reading the explosion of comments since Brad challenged Mankiw’s contention that Bush’s privatization will not lower national savings, I may […]