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

The Macroeconomics of Chinese Kleptocracy

Damn, Krugman beat me to this yesterday. I thought I would be bringing in a fascinating piece from the fringes of the Australioblogosphere. Bronte Capital: The Macroeconomics of Chinese kleptocracy. My basic take is the same as Paul’s: I have no idea whether this John Hempton piece on China is at all right, but it’s […]

Vanity, All Is Vanity. David Brooks Gets One Thing Right.

Today (emphasis mine): Vast majorities of Americans don’t trust their institutions. That’s not mostly because our institutions perform much worse than they did in 1925 and 1955, when they were widely trusted. It’s mostly because more people are cynical and like to pretend that they are better than everything else around them. Vanity has more […]

Turtles All the Way Down: Are Fed Promises "Actions"? How About Promises to Make Promises? Game Theory Edition

The frequently brilliant Ashwin Parameswaran makes The Case Against Monetary Stimulus Via Asset Purchases, and Nick Rowe responds. Ashwin replies, analyzing “monetary policy as a threat strategy.” Nick’s view (in Ashwin’s words): …a credible threat will cause market expectations to adjust and negate the need for any actual intervention in markets by the central bank. […]

The Myth of the "Independent" Voter

John Sides at The Monkey Cage makes what seems to be an incredibly important point, at least for politico types. In the latest Pew report (PDF) that everyone’s nattering about, we see a big rise in “independent” voters over the last decade (to 38%). But: only 12% of respondents did not identify with or lean […]

I Heart Sane Conservatives!

In a recent post I spoke with astonishment and admiration of an article/post by Ron Unz in the May issue of The American Conservative (he’s the publisher) that laid out a realistic, fact-based, cogent, and coherent portrait of our current economic situation. (I also pointed out that he 1. couched the post in an odd […]

Improper Concepts to Measure

In the comments on my recent Home Work, GDP, and Family Values, which discusses a recent study (PDF) on the subject, Saturos points to this Arnold Kling post replying to a Timothy Taylor post summarizing that study. Saturos thinks Arnold’s post is “excellent.” I think otherwise. Arnold says “the value of household production” is an […]

Do Millionaires Vote With Their Feet?

Andrew Rosenthal points us to one of the most eye-poppingly specious arguments I’ve ever seen against high-earner taxes, from Scott Hodge at the Tax Foundation (my bold). …612,520 people renounced their New York State citizenship and moved to Florida between 2000 and 2010. They took with them nearly $20 billion in adjusted gross income, after […]