Economics Roundtable
Job Losses - I
This graph all too clearly illusttrates the current situation.
Job Losses - II
U.S. payroll employment is now almost 300,000 jobs below the worst month in the previous recession.
After a massive downward revision in the past year's payroll employment figures, the total for January 2010 is 129,527,000. The minimum payroll employment in the previous recession was 129,822,00 for August 2003.
Click on the chart for a larger version.
A Positive Number
The revised November change in U.S. payroll employment is +4,000. This is the first positive number since December 2007. Positive is good.
The other side of the coin is that December 2009 payroll employment was 130,910,000. December 1999 payroll employment was 130.532,000. The increase of 378,000 jobs in 10 years is not so good. The labor force increased by 12,882,000 over the same period.
A Troubling Chart
The chart below shows percentage changes in U.S. payroll employment over the previous ten years.
Click on the chart for a larger version.
If payroll employment does not increase for January and February, payroll employment for February 2010 will be less than payroll employment for February 2000.
The chart below shows percentage changes in U.S. payroll employment (blue) and civilian labor force (red) over the previous ten years.
Click on the chart for a larger version.
Good Economics
Bruce Yandle lists the reasons why Cash for Clunkers is a Loser. Among other things, it is the latest example of The Broken Window Fallacy, which was clearly explained by Frederick Bastiat, 1801-1850.
James Hamilton gives a clear explanation of why comparing the level of government debt in 1945 to the projected level of government debt in ten years is not comforting, but is downright scary.
Gregory Mankiw neatly explains the "third factor" consideration in the difference between correlation and causation. Paul Krugman adds a comment, and Mankiw responds.
100%
The Economics Roundtable includes 100% of the Wall Street Journal's Top 25 Economics Blogs plus 120 more.
No Ads!
David Warsh explains why Mark Thoma does not take ads at Economist's View and adds insightful commentary on economics bloggers.
Thinking About Jobs
Jeff Frankel lays out a balanced view of the current employment statistics.
Last Month: Jeff Frankel says that the labor market has NOT yet signalled a turning point. Check the graph of weekly hours at the bottom of the page.
Clive Granger, 1934-2009
We have lost an original thinker of the first magnitude. Clive W. J. Granger.
Auctions and Politicians
Catch up on the background for one of the newest areas of Economics Engineering.
The Clark Medal: A Hindcast
David Warsh identifies the likely winners of the John Bates Clark Medal for even-numbered years. The award has, of course, been announced only in odd-numbered years. Who did we miss?
Why Card Issuers Engage In Rate-Jacking
Adam Levitin of Credit Slips explains another "benefit" of securitization. The economics of this market structure are stunningly bad.
The Geithner Plan
Will it work? Paul Krugman says no.
The New York Times'
Room for Debate
includes Simon Johnson, Brad DeLong, and Mark Toma.
Equilibrium and Meltdown
George Waters addresses the economic crisis and the state of macroeconomics.
Gzing! Gzing! Gzing!
David Warsh offers a fascinating account of the invention of earmarks. Catch his review of So Damn Much Money: The Triumph of Lobbying and the Corrosion of American Government, by Robert G. Kaiser.
VoxEU -- Free Online Book
Rescuing our jobs and savings: What G7/8 leaders can do to solve the global credit crisis -- Contents Page
Richard Baldwin, Barry Eichengreen
"Without rapid and coordinated action by G7/8 leaders, this financial crisis could turn into a jobs crisis, a pension crisis and much more. This column introduces a collection of essays by leading economists on what the G7/8 leaders should do this weekend. The dozen essays present a remarkable consensus on a few points: we need immediate, coordinated global action that includes recapitalisation of the banks."
Economic Principals
Congratulations to David Warsh on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of EP.
The First Global Financial Crisis
of the 21st Century
A VoxEU.org Publication
Edited by Andrew Felton and Carmen Reinhart
Read the announcement
and/or download selected chapters.
Review: the topic itself is important, but this book also marks a new direction for online discussion.
Great Articles by Famous Economists
The Library of Economics and Liberty includes The Concise Encyclopeida of Economics. To see how many well-known economists have contributed browse by category .
EconModel
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- Recent Entries
In gauging the economic recovery's trajectory, you shouldn't forget that this is not a normal tax season.
People who don't pay ...
A blog reader alerts me to this NPR story, which says:
economists frown on what they call "Pigovian taxes," which ...
Since he is responsible for determining my raise each year, and he sent this to me under the title 'Another one for the blog,' [I would've posted it anyway] here are:
Alan Randall’s top 3 reasons why civilized people avoid the company of economists:
3. Failure of foresight. ...
First panel deals with
James Kwak: Funding costs were overly low at the major banks. Alleges too big to fail, but big banks were highly rated. My experience is that small banks equally good as large banks have much higher fundung costs.
Richard Carnell: hits the nail on the head — Regulators ...
In 2008, Maryland added four new income tax brackets, including a top rate of 6.25% on income over $1 million. (This is in addition to county income taxes, which average 2.98%.)
As we and others have noted before, the Comptroller of Maryland has reported that the number of "millionaire" returns tumbled ...
Vol. 13 in The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek has just been released and is available from Amazon.
The volume is titled Studies on the Abuse & Decline of Reason: Text and Documents, and is edited by Bruce Caldwell. Amazon currently has only 3 copies left in ...
Welcome to the Friday, March 12, 2010 edition of On the Moneyed Midways, your single stop for catching up with the best of the past week's blog carnivals ...
Manufacturers' and trade inventories, adjusted for seasonal variations but not for price changes, were estimated at an end-of-month level of $1,310.2 billion, virtually unchanged ...
Janet Yellen, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, is expected to be nominated by President Barack Obama as vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board. Ms. Yellen, 63 years old, has served as a Fed policy maker for almost a decade between her stints in Washington and ...
A roundup of economic news from around the Web.
Toxic Asset: NPR’s Planet Money purchased a toxic asset, and now we can all watch it die. “Our toxic asset has 2,000 mortgages, many of them in hard-hit states like California, Arizona and Florida. A lot of the people in our ...Retails sales last month rose 0.3%, the Census Bureau reported this morning. That’s an upside surprise compared to the consensus outlook, which predicted a 0.3% fall. So much for the idea that snow can keep consumers away from the malls, even if the weather was blamed for pinching ...
Copernicus became the first person to set forth clearly the "quantity theory of money," the theory that prices vary directly with the supply of money in the society. He did so 30 years before Azpilcueta Navarrus.
Fake booms and their consequent busts are directly linked to financial cycles, which in turn reflect the swings in money creation. Fiat money lies at the heart of this process.
What may be breaking are naĂŻve idealistic beliefs that politicians can use a large and intrusive government to serve "the people." And the demise of such beliefs would be a good thing.
This headmaster costume is from UltimatePartyShop.
What do you get when you put an 8-legged person, a Christian headmaster, a bikini softball player, and a mature webmaster in a room? This week’s weird job applicants, that’s ...
Links for Friday:
Dani Rodrik gets way too excited about changing IMF views on capital controls.
Will Wilkinson: libertarians are liberals who like markets.
The NYT again tries tribal analysis in Afghanistan: did they get it wrong again?
Bonus non-development link: where to find the best coffee in New ...
|Peter Boettke|
New study from Germany shows that economic students are happier than those studying other social sciences.
It's obviously true that earmarks are not a significant cause of rising federal spending; eliminating all of them will save at most one percent of the budget. I've always suspected that this is the main reason why right wingers focus on them so obsessively--it makes them look tough on spending ...
Calling government budget deficits unsustainable, a top Federal Reserve official on Thursday called on national leaders to start laying out plans that would allow a move back to more manageable spending levels.
New York Fed President William Dudley ...The Economist is hosting a green jobs debate between former Green Jobs Czar Van Jones and Andrew Morriss, one of the authors of “The Green Jobs Myth”. The pre-debate vote of reader support for the statement “This house believes that creating green jobs is a sensible aspiration for ...
The IMF usually has maximal bargaining power at a country’s moment of crisis – it typically cares far less about whether the country makes it through than the country itself does, and hence can extract harsh conditions in return for aid. But – as ...
Simon Johnson serves up a grim but realistic report:
...Every 1 percentage point rise in interest rates means Greece needs to send an additional 1.2 percent of GDP abroad to those bondholders.
What if Greek interest rates rise to, say, 10% – a modest premium for a country which has the ...
FrederickSamuel, where this picture is from, says:
When Pifzer wanted to mark Viagra’s 11th birthday, they wanted to do it in typical, tongue-in-cheek Viagra style. A party blower (featuring a Viagra pill pattern) was created to hand out to internal sales teams. The message on the piece encouraged the sales ...
I agree with Andrew: This sudden race in the House to see whose holier-than-thou on earmarks is a good thing. But there are three reasons why no one should get too excited about the recent developments:
1. As Andrew notes and I've remarked on previously, eliminating earmarks doesn't actually reduce ...
My column from yesterday's The Fiscal Times noted that state and local governments around the country, which because of balanced budget requirements and dramatically falling revenues are facing some very tough times, are being forced to make difficult decisions.
But this story in yesterday's The New York Times about ...
It would be great if people who reported on the budget deficit for major news outlets could be required to know the basic accounting identities that get taught in every introductory economics class. The key one that almost none of them seem to know is that the trade deficit (X-M) ...
The Wall Street Journal this morning is reporting that Janet Yellen is on the fast track to become the central bank's second-in-command replacement for the retiring Don Kohn.
Perfect Babies and C-Section Complaints
Some issues are like spring flowers, always returning.
The "too many C-Sections" debate is recurring again, raising issues of cost and clinical judgment (some women want sections for cosmetic reasons).
Problem is, Americans expect perfect babies, and ...
Peter Peterson, the billionaire Wall Street investment banker, is devoting more than $1 billion to a campaign to whip up fears about budget deficits in order to force cuts in Social Security and Medicare. It almost looks as though the NYT has joined the effort.
It printed an article today ...
The Washington Post is a huge supporter of trade agreements like NAFTA that put non-college educated workers in direct competition with low-paid workers in the developing world, while largely protecting the most highly educated workers like doctors and lawyers. They push this selective protectionism by calling it "free trade." They ...
The Post had a front page article with a headline warning readers that a "new round of foreclosures threatens housing market." Yes, well actually a huge oversupply of housing created by the bubble-driven construction boom is virtually certain to push prices back down to their trend level.
This one ...
The Austrian newspaper Der Kurier has quite detailed information leaked from the ongoing negotiations for a Greek bailout scenario. According to their sources, Germany and Paris agreed that Greece might need €55bn until the end of the year to prevent insolvency. The German government would be ...
Please consider Kansas City Closing 26 Public Schools
Facing potential bankruptcy, the board that governs the once flush-with-cash Kansas City school district is taking the unusual and contentious step of shuttering almost ...
Readers Question: Creating a post recession; what steps should the EU take to reform the banking sector?
I have looked at this important issue in this essay: - Steps to Avoid Financial Crisis
Reforms To The Banking Sector Could Include:Regulation of Mortgage Products
Unconventional Mortgages like 100% mortgages, self-certification, interest only, mortgages ...
Kate Kelly and Dennis Berman to CNBC? — Mediabistro
The RSS debate, cont: Jack Shafer piles on — Slate
The full Lehman report — Jenner
The Breslin’s forkage fee — NYT
Was the runaway Prius a fake? — Jalopnik
NYU Law Professor Charged With Criminal Libel in France for Refusing ...
In my Forbes column this week I discuss the dangers. BB
Virtually every budget expert knows that the U.S. federal debt is on an unsustainable course. This means that something beyond our control is eventually going to force us to live within our means. Historically, it has been foreign ...The Wall Street Journal is reporting that San Francisco Fed President Janet Yellen will be nominated to be Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve Board. Since she is already a member of the FOMC, however, this doesn't really change the direction of monetary policy. The Journal says that persons have ...
Having made the same points, I have no choice but to agree:
Fed Vacancies and the Monetary Challenge, by Alan S. Blinder, Commentary, WSJ: ...Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Donald Kohn's recent announcement that he will retire in June will bring the Federal Reserve Board down to four members—unless the Obama ...
Don't believe the "three big myths" about health care reform:
Health Reform Myths, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: Health reform is back from the dead. Many Democrats have realized that their electoral prospects will be better if they can point to a real accomplishment. Polling on reform — which ...
I suggested Dr. Yellen as a possible candidate for Fed Chairman last year, so obviously I think this is a good choice. She was way ahead of most other Fed members in recognizing the housing bubble, ...
Editorial: The Senate, by its "absurd rules" giving a single Senator the power to block any pending legislation for as long as his physical strength holds out, has "robbed itself of ...
The Senate “jobs bill” passed on Wednesday contains nearly $60 billion in (obviously-jobs-related) extended unemployment benefits. (Here is the CBO cost estimate.) But it also includes $34 billion in extended tax cuts, none of which are brand new (they’re “expiring” provisions, ...
as declared ...
Friday's Wall Street Journal has the latest survey of 54 professional economic forecasters. Among the questions they were asked was this: "What would the real gross domestic product (annualized growth rate) be/have been for the following period absent the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act?"
The average response said that growth would ...
"A nonpaying tax return is ...
Greece has economic troubles, and the extent and breadth of those troubles only seems to worsen the more the outside world learns of what makes this country tick.
Earlier today the Congressional Budget Office released an updated analysis of the Senate health bill. The update reflects all the amendments that were adopted during Senate consideration of the bill, some technical adjustments, and the assumption that the bill would be enacted in the spring of 2010 (rather than ...
"Spring Forward" .... taken too far
What day is today?
by Soylent Green is People
From the FDIC: Valley National Bank, Wayne, New Jersey, Assumes All of the Deposits of LibertyPointe Bank, New York, New York
LibertyPointe Bank, New York, New York, was ...
There is an interesting excerpt on the apparent use of repo transactions to bolster Lehman's balance sheet:
... former Global Financial Controller Martin ... Kelly believed “that the only purpose or ...
Do higher cigarette prices deter smoking? This column finds that policymakers in developing countries could reduce cigarette consumption by youths by raising taxes. A 10% increase in the price will reduce youth cigarette demand by 18.3%.
Full Article: Do higher cigarette prices deter smoking?
"Airlines are pushing back against new rules that give fliers more rights. They are threatening to cancel scores of flights in response to a new rule that would prohibit airlines ...
Kevin Drum has a couple of good questions about credit default swaps, and the final link in his post literally made me laugh out loud, so I’ll do my best to answer him.
If the bond issuer does default, and there are a hundred speculators who own CDS protection on ...
Treasury 30-year bonds gained as one of the biggest yield premiums over 2-year government securities on record bolstered demand at today’s U.S. auction of $13 billion in bonds.
“Insurers, pension funds and ...
L. Randall Wray has been a long-time critic of orthodox monetary economics and US economic policy. Recently he continued his crusade in a paper titled Alternative Approaches to Money [pdf], Theoretical Inquires into Law (11:1), January 2010. Wray is among many Chartalists (Wikipedia) who are active both in ...
Okay, here is tonight’s rule: Governments that scam the asset markets (and their citizens) take all manner of half measures to defend failed policies before undertaking structural reform. (This includes defending the currency, some asset sales, anything that avoids true shrinkage of the role of government.) The five stages of ...
Der Spiegel on the official lies that underpin European Monetary Union:
Since joining the euro zone, the 16 euro countries have violated the deficit rule, under which net new debt cannot exceed 3 percent of GDP, 43 times. Most of the infractions have occurred in the last two ...
The Fed MBS purchases are scheduled to end on March 31st.
It will take a couple of months for some of these purchases to settle on the Fed's balance sheet (see: the discussion from SIFMA: "To-Be-Announced" Trading of Agency Passthrough Securities)
...
The Federal ReserveÂ’s latest flow of funds report offers a clue for those trying to understand why banks often donÂ’t want to lend to businesses: By some measures, businessesÂ’ finances are still deteriorating.
In the fourth quarter of 2009, nonfinancial corporate businessesÂ’ net worth — what they ...
President Obama’s proposal to boost the Medicare tax is a key element of the compromise health bill that looks increasingly as if it is going to become law. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates it would generate over $180 billion over the next decade. And exactly as intended, the ...
Many thanks to Tim Fernholz, of The American Prospect, and Taylor Griffin, of Hamilton Place Strategies, for helping me out via IM this afternoon to explain to me what on earth is going on with Chris Dodd and the financial regulatory reform bill. The Reuters headline says that talks ...
I haven't gone after Krugman for awhile, so why not today, especially when he's repeating myths about Herbert Hoover? But that's not the real problem. The real problem is how he spins the graph below, which shows the rate of change in consumption expenditures and gross ...
[This was simply too good to leave in the comments, so I've reposted it here - SH]
Richard Ebeling
Since Peter began with some quotes, including one by Ludwig von Mises, may I offer a little "doctrinal" interpretation about how Mises actually acted as a economic theorist and policy ...
~ Frederic Sautet ~
The main problem with legal tender fiat currencies is that one can hardly escape them. As Hayek came to realize in the 1970s, a major issue with currency and central banking ...
It's not clear to whether Senate Banking chairman Chris Dodd simply lost his patience or was told by his Democratic brethren to end the fruitless attempt to negotiate with Republicans over financial regulatory reform.
It doesn't matter. The important thing is that Dodd finally called it quits and announced ...
Rajiv Sethi draws a connection between reflexivity theory, risk/reward asymmetry, and the question of whether naked credit default swaps should be restricted:
On Asymmetry, Reflexivity and Sovereign Default, by Rajiv Sethi: One of the most rewarding aspects of blogging is that it gives me the opportunity learn from those ...
From a Dallas Fed Letter by Jian Wang:
Durable goods represent a moderate share of the economy in most industrial countries -- in the U.S., for example, they accounted for 23.6 percent of real GDP in 2008. However, durable goods make up a large share of international trade. In ...
Political pressure seems to be mounting for yuan appreciation. [0] Figure 1 depicts the stability in the USD/CNY nominal exchange rate over the past year.
As health care goes, so goes job growth?
Amid the worst labor market in more than a generation, it is surprising that discussions — pro and con — about overhauling health insurance tend to ignore one key issue: The current insurance system that relies on employer-provided policies and little portability threatens ...
Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) on Thursday talked openly of the bipartisan compromise he nearly reached with Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.) over new financial regulations.
On consumer protection:
“I think the consumer title that Chairman Dodd puts forth will be very much shaped ...
In earlier posts, I considered two trends: first, the eroding boundary between chronically defaulting sovereign and risk-free government debt; and second, the comfy symbiosis among feckless rules, fudged government accounts and basic financial engineering. I also considered the politics of erosion and symbiosis. In this post and the ...
Initial reaction to my Climate Desk bleg has been pretty interesting. I’m looking for companies which are taking a serious strategic look at managing the risks of climate change, and so far I haven’t really found any. The on-topic responses I have received have generally fallen into two categories: ...
Political pressure seems to be mounting for yuan appreciation. [0] Figure 1 depicts the stability in the USD/CNY nominal exchange rate over the past year.
Lower tax rates increase the incentive to work, save, and invest, and they ...
There is this notion abroad that an extra billion in government spending can be converted from "irresponsible" to "responsible" as ...
In the world of economics and finance, revolutions occur rarely and are often detected only in hindsight. But what happened on February 19 can safely be called the end of an era in global finance.
On that day, the International Monetary Fund published a policy note ...
A headline in today’s Wall Street Journal reads “Obama Details Effort to Double Exports Over Five Years.”
Translation: “Obama Details Effort to Increase Corporate Welfare Over Five Years.”
A stranger in an airplane sparked a conversation with me the other day. Rather than the usual awkward seatmate dialogue, we ended up having a good conversation.
He told me about his time in Iraq and playing craps in Vegas. ...
When unions ...
On CNBC's "Closing Bell" yesterday, Ann Holley of KPMG discusses how so-called "Amazon tax" laws -- which force online retailers such as Amazon.com to collect sales taxes -- could affect state budget deficits. She cites the Tax Foundation's recent report on Amazon taxes, which notes that rather than increasing ...
How many pages does it take to record the U.S. federal tax code?
It's often been remarked that the growth ...
Why are they calling this a jobs bill? There are hardly any job creation measures in it:
Jobless claims bill OK'd by Senate, by Tami Luhby, CNNMoney.com: The Senate on Wednesday approved ... by a 62-36 vote ... the latest job creation effort to go before lawmakers, though it contains ...
The United States hotel industry posted only its third revenue-per-available-room increase in 18 months for the week ending 6 March 2010, rising 0.9 percent to US$52.75, according to data from Smith Travel Research. It was the first time the increase ...
According to the Fed, household net worth is now off $12.5 Trillion from the peak in 2007, but up $5.0 trillion from the trough last year. A majority of the decline in net ...
A roundup of economic news from around the Web.
Consumer Lending: Ellyn Terry on the Atlanta Fed’s macroblog looks at consumer lending. “Is the decline in consumer credit the result of supply- or demand-side forces? Perhaps the answer is both. According to the Federal Reserve’s Senior Loan Officer Survey, ...Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) said he was very disappointed talks have broken off with Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.) and blamed health care and White House politics for the problem.
“I think Republicans want to see a good financial reform bill. I think Democrats want to see ...
Two trading firms, one of them an established Wall Street player and the other a Midwest upstart, are each about to premiere a sophisticated new financial tool: a box-office futures exchange that would ...
While the S&P 500 returned an average of 9.5 % annually over the last 50 years, the comparable figure after accounting for trading and management costs, dividend and capital-gains taxes, and inflation was a mere 1.3 %, according to ...
I’m a big admirer of David Lazarus, of the LA Times, but I think he was a bit credulous on Monday when he complained about the downside of closing credit cards.
He’s right to slam Citigroup, of course, for slapping a $60 annual fee on a lot of credit cards ...
Turan Bali, Stephen Brown, and Mustafa Caglayan have a new paper out with an interesting result:
The two most important findings from this study are summarized as follows: (i) hedge funds with higher exposure to default risk premium in the past month generate higher returns in the following month; ...
This post is even more of a brain dump than usual. I would really appreciate any feedback that you have.
One of the big lessons of economics is that a market economy functions as an equilibrium system. As such pushing out on it, for good or ill doesn’t cause the effects ...
Here’s a letter that I sent to the Washington Post:
George Will wisely warns against reason unreasonably applied (“As a progressive, Obama hews to the Wilsonian tradition,” March 11). Pres. Obama and his ilk are guided by an irrational faith that human reason is so potent and encompassing that it ...
The 2010 Forbes billionaire list awarded Carlos Slim Helu its richest man in the world honor. The Mexican tycoon is worth $53.5 billion, beating out Bill Gates ($53 billion) and Warren Buffett ($47 billion). Here are ...
Bank of America recently experienced a home seizure FAIL. The bank ransacked a woman’s home, padlocked her doors shut, and seized her parrot–by accident. The bank accidentally foreclosed on her home, even though her mortgage payments were up ...
From today’s NYT:
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Six Pakistani employees of the American Christian charity World Vision were killed Wednesday and seven others were wounded in an attack on the aid group’s offices in a remote village in northern Pakistan.
The ...
|Peter Boettke|
Adam Smith finished that thought about government officials assuming an authority over the economic affairs as follows: "which can safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands ...
Please consider the Unemployment Weekly Claims Report for March 11, 2010.
In the week ending March 6, the ...
Some students wanted to attend the protest but may have faced possible retribution from their instructors.
“I support the rally but still need to go to my classes,” environmental economics major Alisa Rudnick said. “I will join in after my schedule allows, but I can’t compromise my education for it.”
Rudnick said ...
The $1 cigarette tax hike being proposed by some Georgia lawmakers would push cigarette sales out of state or into the black market, according to a new Tax Foundation report.
Read Tax Foundation Fiscal Fact, No. 215, "Georgia Should Refrain from Relying on Smokers to Fill Budget Hole."
Idaho may have scored lower in business friendly tax structure than its western neighbors Oregon and Washington in our State Business Tax Climate Index, but trends may change. While Oregon has no sales tax and Washington has no income tax (and not having a major tax is a big ...
[T]otal January exports of $142.7 billion and imports of $180.0 billion resulted in a goods and services deficit of $37.3 billion, down from $39.9 billion in December, revised.
Today Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D., Conn.) issued the following statement on financial reform:
“On Monday, I will present to my colleagues a substitute to the original financial reform package, unveiled last November.”
“Over the last few months, Banking Committee members have worked together to try and produce a consensus ...
CBO has just released an estimate of the budgetary effects of the health bill, H.R. 3590, that passed the Senate on December 24. Today’s estimate differs from the estimate for a slightly earlier version of the legislation that we released on December 19 in that it encompasses all ...
John Stossel takes on the licensing police on his FOX Business show tonight, watch a preview above. We license doctors, lawyers, drivers, dogs. The state of Louisiana licenses at least 87 professions, including acupuncturist assistants, athletic trainers, manicurists, ...
The jury’s still out on the path of least resistance in the trend for initial jobless claims. Today’s weekly update is certainly a step in the right direction, although last week’s meager drop in new filings for jobless benefits falls far short of stellar, or convincing. The sluggish behavior of ...
They claimed that ...
The WSJ has an article about fears that suppliers in the US dairy industry have about cheap imports from New Zealand. In response, they are lobbying Congress for protection. Remember, it's often easier to persuade Congress to impose protectionist policies than it is to persuade consumers that your product ...
What a fearful thought — if this situation is general: a nation of people, the vast majority of whom do no thinking for themselves in the area of political economy!
With universal mandates, insurance companies no longer compete for multiple clients, but for just one — this is called a monopsony. The amount of eligible insurance companies quickly dwindles.
Binya Appelbaum has the latest news on the shape of the consumer financial protection legislation which is likely to come out of the Senate:
Payday lenders, pawnbrokers, car dealers and other companies that make loans but do not hold bank charters would be shielded from the scrutiny of a proposed ...
Is Twitter becoming less social and more of a news feed, where people just follow celebrities rather than interacting with their friends? Julianne Pepitone of CNN Money would have you think so:
A whopping 73% of Twitter accounts have tweeted fewer than 10 times according to a new report from ...
Here is David Ignatius:
My favorite analyst of bubble economies is David M. Smick, who predicted the U.S. financial mess in his book "The World Is Curved." He notes some worrying statistics: Until the global financial crisis, Chinese exports represented 43 percent of its gross domestic product. To make ...
The latest in the various ongoing attempts by the Jacksonville Jaguars to court interest, any interest, in their team from the local citizenry: guilt. Speaking to a gathering of business and community leaders at the Rotary Club of Jacksonville, former Jaguar standout lineman Tony Boselli exhorted people to get behind ...
I am all for eliminating earmarks to for-profit companies and for extending it to non-profits as well. All discretionary money should be awarded on an open, competitive basis, with oversight of the executive branch agencies by appropriate Congressional committees. Earmarks have no place in federal spending, as a matter of principle. ...
In the week ending March 6, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 462,000, a decrease of 6,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 468,000. The 4-week moving average was 475,500, an increase of 5,000 from the previous ...
In recent weeks, policy makers from President Barack Obama to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke have been taking extraordinary measures to remove what they see as a serious impediment to the recovery: A dearth of credit for the small businesses that many economists say must play a leading role in ...
One thing that I think we all agreed on in yesterday's panel on "too big to fail" was that many of the plans for a separate resolution authority are being driven toward a FDIC model by Treasury and the Fed, both are whom are more familiar with that ...
The attempts to create a double standard of gold and silver failed lamentably. It was this failure that generated the gold standard - a manifestation of a crushing defeat of the governments and their cherished doctrines.
The FBI’s “Most Wanted List” will turn 60 years old this sunday. It’s success rate had been impressive: 463 of the 494 fugitives on the list since 1950 have been caught, which adds up to a 94% success rate.
What does the future hold for the program? Social networking:
As technology ...
My favorite is number seven:
Pencils made from the carbon of human cremains. 240 pencils can be made from an average body of ash - a lifetime supply of pencils for those left behind.
Each pencil is foil stamped with the name of the person. Only one pencil can be ...
Google recently released some major improvements in its public data efforts. If you click on over to Public Data, you will find a much broader range of data sets including economic information from the OECD and World Bank, key economic statistics for the United States, and some education statistics ...
Readers Question: how will central bank may increase the supply of money in economy?
The money supply is the total amount of money available in the economy at a particular point in time. A narrow definition of money involves notes and coins. A broader definition includes cash plus bank and building ...
There’s always a fascination with the richest people in the world. Apparantely, according to Forbes, the richest person in the world is now a Mexican called Carlo Slim Helu. According to IMF statistics his wealth of $53.5bn is roughly equal to the GDP of both Sudan $57bn and Slovenia $54bn ...
The NYT reports that opponents of a measure that would save money by putting private lenders out of the government guaranteed student loan business warn that it could cost jobs. This is of course true.
Suppose there is an efficient computer company that sells computers for $500 each and an ...
In a discussion of the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac the Washington Post noted that the government had committed $125 billion to cover their losses. While the article reports that these losses have been a major political issue, it would have been useful to point out that ...
The Washington Post reports that Senator Gregg does not know why the government is spending money to create jobs. According to the Post, Mr. Gregg said of a jobs bill:
"Why do we keep doing this? .... Why do we keep passing debt on to our children? Why do ...
. . . demand curves are negatively sloped.
A new study that followed participants for 20 years shows both weight and risk for diabetes decreased for people in communities where fast food prices increased.
The study also showed when prices fell, consumption, weight, and diabetes risks rose.
(Link via Chris ...
The Chicago School--why does anybody still listen to it?
I have frequently written here about the problems of "freshwater" economics--the school personified by Milt Friedman and the extremist "free market" ideology that views government as the enemy, the "markets" as always right, and any public ...
(p. 32) "I was in search of a one-armed economist, so that the guy could never make a statement and then say: "on the other hand.""
Source:
Harry S. Truman as quoted in: Keyes, Ralph. The Wit & Wisdom of Harry S. Truman. New York: ...
Dan Gross:
What "Government Takeover"?, by Daniel Gross: There have been lots of absurdities in the debate—such as it is—about health care reform. There's the hypocrisy of people dependent on government-run health care complaining about government-run health care. And now comes the Republican canard that the current health care reform ...
[F]oreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — were reported on 308,524 U.S. properties during the month, a decrease of 2 percent from the previous month but still 6 percent above the level reported in February ...
The momentum for a ban on naked CDS is getting stronger. Germany and France on Wednesday called on the European Union to consider banning speculative trading in credit default swaps and set up a compulsory register of derivatives trading, the FT reports. Angela Merkel and Francois ...
We are all very lucky that David Broder is not in charge of fiscal policy, he thinks it's a good idea to balance the budget in a recession:
What the states could teach Washington about budgets, by David S. Broder, Commentary, Washington Post: ...The record of the Washington politicians is ...
The major hospital network Miami relies on for trauma care is close to insolvency and could be cut off by suppliers. Executives for Jackson Health System surprised its governing board Tuesday by saying the nonprofit is near or already ...
My column from yesterday's The Fiscal Times shows what's ahead when the spending reductions begin.
Reducing Spending Cuts More Than Waste, Fraud and Abuse
Mar 10, 2010
Those who have demanded and supported cuts in federal spending over ...
[T]he Panel remains unconvinced that bankruptcy was not a viable option in 2008. In connection with the Chrysler and GM bankruptcies, Treasury might have been able to orchestrate a strategic bankruptcy for ...
The FPPC's report, entitled "Big Money Talks," delves ...
Washington report: Democrats seen likely to nominate wet candidate in 1932; strategy will be to hold the "solid South" and add large Eastern states, where wet stand would appeal; ...
Carlos Slim is #1 on the Forbes wealthiest list, with $53.5 billion, up $18.5 billion in 12 months — Forbes
Alex Ross with the definitive take on applause between movements — RPS (Alex and I have been blogging this since at least 2003)
Google Maps Finally Adds Bike Routes ...
Rather than reaching the needy, up to half of Somalia’s food aid ends up in the pockets of radical militants, corrupt bureaucrats and local businessmen, and local UN staff, according to an article in this morning’s New York Times on the findings of a new UN report.
The report, which ...