Enforce the Sherman Anti-trust Act and Regulate the Shadow Banks

I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating.  Monopoly power and rent-seeking behavior are anathema to market systems. Politics should stay out of economic decisions and government should provide the framework that makes the market honest, transparent, and open to all interests.  Republican and Democratic pols need to go back to Principles of Microeconomics classes [...]

On the other hand … or is it Hoof?

In what is undoubtedly good news, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis (Dept. of Commerce) has announced that  REAL GDP grew by approximately 3.5% in the third quarter of 2009.  That is up from the second quarter growth of .7%.  It appears that the economy may be rebounding from the so-called “Great Recession”.  However, as [...]

Did he come to bury or praise Suppy-Side Economics?

Bruce Bartlett has just released  a new book–and a mea culpa of sorts– for supply side economics (SSE). As an ex-aide to the late Jack Kemp and author of a book on Reaganomics, Bartlett’s got an interesting perspective from having a seat near the table.   He also takes a few undeserved potshots at some Keynesians [...]

Death by Bubble

Economist Andy Xie says Lehman Brothers died in vain and that it’s just a matter of time before we get hit by another deadly bubble.  His guest post at  Caijing Magazine is just so dead on that you must go read it.
There has been plenty to learn from last year’s miserable economy and near [...]

Some times being Right doesn’t always make you Feel Good

You may remember back in January that I was not happy and very outspoken about the size of the Obama Stimulus plan.  I was not impressed by the content or with the mix between tax cuts and direct government spending. You may recall that the Blue Dogs interminable resistance to do anything that might wake [...]

Feel the Bern!

While I stuck the announcement into the morning links, you had to know that I’d front page this announcement some time today.  So you also probably knew that I  breathed a quiet sigh of relief last night when I found out we were not getting La La Summers for Fed Chief.  President Obama has decided [...]

What’s a little Hindsight Worth?

Kenneth Rogoff is a Havard professor of Economics and Public Policy.   He’s decided that a year is enough to buy some hindsight about the financial crisis. He’s also got a particularly dismal view of the economy over the next five years.  Yves at Naked Capitalism framed the Rogoff article with a  Shakespeare line and offered [...]

Why I’m not smoking the Green Shoots Yet

Paul Krugman and other economic commentators, including the Wall Street Cheerleading Squad at CNBC, have been out and about saying we’re stepping away from the Depression Abyss. It’s true, and I’ve said it here, that we’re seeing a slowing down of that incredible momentum towards the edge.  Things do look less bleak than they [...]

What’s That Lassie? Little Timmy’s in the Well AGAIN?

Wow, it looks like Turbo Tax Timmy has gone rogue!  We better send the press up to Alaska to chase down another Palin rumor.  First, there’s that nastiness over the weekend with the Stephanapolous show on ABC where he explicitly said that the administration wasn’t ruling out new taxes on the middle class. (Something [...]

Monetary Policy at the Zero Bound

I am a financial economist and I’ve been through most phases of my career one that applies the trade in banking. That’s because my first economics specialty was monetary economics. I still have my original copy of Patinkin’s Money, Interest and Price sitting next to my dad’s original copy of Keyne’s The [...]