John Quiggin provides an excellent discussion of macroeconomics. It is much too good to summarize. Just click the link and read. Paul Krugman is also (as usual) brilliant. In particular, I fear he understands the sociology of the profession. I have some comments on Quiggin.
For a senator who likes to hold himself out as the future of the Republican brand, Marco Rubio has come up with a remarkably retrograde contribution to the party’s chorus of phony empathy for the poor: Let the states do it. All anti-poverty funds should be combined into one “flex fund,” he said in a […]
This isn’t trivial. One of the sweetest dogs I’ve ever met was a waggly-tailed white pit bull that a neighbor of a friend of mine found roaming the street. As soon as the sweetie saw you approaching, she’d wag her tail excitedly and then lie down on her back to invite you to rub her […]
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 […]
Recently, I was pleased to note a disagreement between Paul Krugman and Dean Baker. Finally, I hoped, a chance to prove I am not a knee jerk acolyte of Krugman. Sadly I found I agreed with Krugman and not Baker (ouch). But I didn’t give up hope, until yesterday. Surely, I can disagree with Krugman […]
Well, that didn’t take long, did it? It began yesterday morning, with a Politico article by Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen, and an accompanying video by Allen, suggesting improper actions of the IRS resulting from its inability to adequately handle the tsunami of exempt-organizations applications, coupled with the DOJ’s overly aggressive use of its subpoena powers […]
Forget that being-worth-a-thousand-words thing. The picture and its caption in this Krugman blog post are … priceless. (I just about fell out of my chair when I saw that. And, five minutes later, I’m still laughing.)
It’s hard to know who will end up taking the biggest political hit if the latest Washington-induced crisis moves from theoretical to real — but the answer may well lie in which side can get the public to buy into its finger-pointing at the other side. That’s why the excuses matter: Polls show Obama has […]
Mr. President, I still live in the same working-class neighborhood I grew up in. My neighbors aren’t millionaires. They’re retirees who depend on Social Security and Medicare. They’re workers who have to get up early tomorrow morning and go to work to pay the bills. They’re immigrants, who came here because they were stuck in […]
Just a quick observation: for the past couple of days I’ve been seeing in a lot of places, including comments on this blog, the assertion that federal spending has risen 37 percent under Obama — that specific number. Does anyone know where it’s coming from? Because if I look at the actual data, I see […]