Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Mellon-ization, Austerianism, and Grexit

“Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate… It will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up from less competent people.” -Andrew W. Mellon […]

Iceland: Bankers convicted, unemployment down

Remember Iceland? During the high-flying early 2000s, its three main banks went berserk, paying high interest rates to international investors that accumulated deposits equal to more than 100% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and making loans equal to 980% of GDP. When the collapse came, Iceland took a route not taken by Ireland, […]

Ireland, Krugman, Kenneth Thomas

Paul Krugman points to Angry Bear Kenneth Thomas in this piece in the New York Times on the use of Ireland as somehow a success story of what are failed policies regarding employment: Ireland Is The Success Story Of The Future, And Always Will Be Via Mark Thoma, Kenneth Thomas analyzes the latest attempt to […]

Medicaid Austin Frakt, Aaron Carroll and Kevin Drum are Good for the USA

by Robert Waldmann An important study of the effect of Medicaid on health was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.  The study was based on a genuine experiment where some people were given Medicaid and other people weren’t based on a lottery.  Unfortunately, the results were communicated with a NEJM  press release and […]

More Right Wing Lies – Now As In The Roaring 20’s

Amity Shlaes, the disinformation bunny, is still going.  In the latest issue of Imprimus, a publication of Hillsdale College, is a transcript adapted from a recent talk she gave there during a conference on the Income Tax, sponsored by Hillsdale’s own Center for Constructive Alternatives and the Ludwig von Mises Lecture Series.  Right away, you […]

Austerity and Budgets explained

In support of Beverly’s latest post and all her past postings wanting for Obama (or the Dem’s in general I would say) to explain the truth about how a government’s money really flows, I present this video from the Watson Institute. (via Didby at Hullaaloo.)  I happen to agree, it would be nice if our […]

Europeans, Republicans Dreaming Up New Ways to Destroy Global Economy

While we are busy paying attention to the 550th edition of Republican-caused fake crises (aka the sequester), a much more real crisis is brewing in the Eurozone. Richard Field at Trust Your Instincts flags a Reuters report that that Eurozone regulators are strongly considering a proposal to make not just investors in Cyprus banks pay […]

How To Debate Paul Krugman

On Saturday Mish wrote a really awful article with those words in it’s title. The article borrows these words and includes a quote from an even more awful article by Austrian school economist and author Detlev Schlichter.  Part of that quote is presented here. What makes him [PK] so annoying is his unquestioning, reflexive and […]

Brian Williams Thinks Raising the Debt Ceiling Means Increasing BUDGET APPROPRIATIONS. O Peter Jennings, Walter Cronkite, and Edward R. Murrow, Where Art Thou? — [UPDATED]

I watched NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams last night.  Big Mistake. Big mistake. Because now I’m really confused.  I was pretty darn sure until then that “raising the debt ceiling” meant allowing the Treasury Department to pay financial obligations already incurred, such as interest on bonds, Medicare payments, and contract obligations, and to allow […]

Jonathon Portes on Macroeconomics and the deficit

Jonathon Portes on macroeconomics and the deficit: As we all know, since then both the US and UK have had deficits running at historically extremely high levels, and long-term interest rates at historic lows: as Krugman has repeatedly pointed out, the (IS-LM) textbook has been spot on.  Empirically (and theoretically) well-founded? Definitely.  As Simon Wren-Lewis points […]