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

Irish Austerity Exodus Continues

The Eurozone experiment in austerity continues to fail as the peripheral countries endure ongoing cuts. Following up on my post of August 15, it’s time to look at the most recent Irish immigration data to update it through April 2013 (Ireland records population data from May 1 to April 30) and see how it affects […]

Tax Policy Center* Says Romney Lies

Mitt Romney proposes reducing tax brackets by 20% and cutting the estate tax (to zero IIRC). He will keep or expand favored treatment of capital gains and dividends. He claims that he doesn’t plan to cut taxes for the rich. He claims that he will avoid such cuts by eliminating deductions, credits and exclusions. One […]

Is Ireland the Poster Child of Growth?

by Rebecca Wilder Is Ireland the Poster Child of Growth? I wanted to familiarize myself with the economic statistics in Ireland, so I thought that I’d share my findings with you all. Many politicians refer to Ireland as the poster child of austerity – according to the contentious thesis of expansionary austerity (a review from the […]

American Enterprise Institute Economists Redux

by Mike Kimel American Enterprise Institute Economists Redux The other day I wrote a post about economists at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a prominent conservative think-tank. The post began with this paragraph from a story in the NY Times Politicians sometimes say that lower tax rates lead to higher economic growth, which in turn […]

The Argument Against the "First Derivative Mistake" Excuse

Unless you’re really stupid, or bending over backwards to find excuses for the Obama Administration’s Geithnerian malfeasance, you should be less than impressed with Matt Yglesias’s attempt to argue that the Administration saw reason to be happy with overall employment (link to Brad DeLong). If you’re Matt Yglesias, you should be even less impressed with […]

Graph That Explains Everything About Amity Shlaes

by Mike Kimel Thanks to Linda Beale, I headed over here: The George W. Bush Institute announced today that Amity Shlaes has been named director of the 4% Growth Project, a key part of the Institute’s focus on economic growth. Miss Shlaes will open the project’s office in New York. The aim of the project […]

About That, er, Monetary Expansion…

Brad DeLong has a spat with Scott Sumner: The IS-LM model led economic historians to argue money was easy in 1929-30, because rates fell sharply. It led modern Keynesians to assume that money was easy in 2008, because rates fell sharply… Well, I would say that not just “modern Keynesians” but a lot of people […]

PSA: Steve Keen at the Roosevelt in NYC tonight at 5:00/6:00

Talk is called “Neat, Plausible, and Wrong: the Deluded Discipline of Economics.” I have to quibble with the “plausible” portion: there is no possible way to rationalize contemporary Microeconomics with any reasonable conceit that the Macroeconomics produced are “first-best” or anything similar.* I doubt I’ll be there at 5:00, but certainly by 6:00. Hope to […]