When Deficits Matter …

There’s a lot of misunderstanding in popular culture (most started during the Reagan years) about deficit spending and the public debt.  Deficits tend to increase naturally during bad economic times due to what we economists call automatic stabilizers.  These are spending programs (most of which were built into the economy during the New Deal) that [...]

Wednesday Morning Coffee and Links

Dear Conflucians;
Well, it’s my turn to be the morning news diva which means I completed the assignment while you were asleep and now that you’re reading this I’m asleep!  Old Jazz musician habits die hard and I have two more weeks of sleeping in late before I have to be lucid at 8 a.m.  in [...]

Barack Obama and General Electric: Why MSNBC and NBC Talking Heads Supported Obama So Vociferously

It is starting to look like General Electric is Barack Obama’s Halliburton.
A “Negotiated Settlement” of the Olbermann-O’Reilly Media War
Yesterday Dakinikat wrote a post on the “negotiated settlement” in which Keith Olbermann of MSNBC and Bill O’Reilly of Fox News were silenced by their respective corporate masters, General Electric and News Corp. Here’s a [...]

MacroEconomic Malpractice

If the U.S. economy was a patient, I’m sure we all would be talking medical malpractice by now.  After having 8 years of nothing to lecture on during the Clinton years other than, yes Keynesian economics works, we are now on our 9th year of wtf?  (Feel sorry for my poor undergrads.) We’re still dealing [...]

A Blue Pill for the Economy

I firmly fell into the “this is not going to be enough camp” when the initial Obama stimulus plan came hopping down the bunny trail  during Q1 2009.  You can read me here and here and as recently as here.    Krugman and Delong are still on the same page with me.  First, there’s Paul’s Vegematic [...]

Thursday Morning News Links (with a little help from my friend Katiebird)

News from the Boston Area
Good morning, Conflucians! It’s another gray day in New England, but at least the Red Sox are still in first place.
Kansas City Royals play Red Sox this weekend.
José Guillen returned to the lineup — but as the designated hitter — and could spend time this weekend battling the Green [...]

Dismal Economists: Getting Real on those Green Shoots

I’ve been concerned about the lack of real evidence for the administration’s green shoot hypothesis. It seems that I’m not the only one. A new Wall Street Journal Poll shows that Americans are increasingly ‘wary’ of the deficit and Obama’s economic intervention as Obama’s poll number’s slip.
But the poll suggests Mr. Obama [...]

Charge! (Or not)

(Note to view this, double click to go to the You Tube Site)
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke testified before congress this week and highlighted one of the big future worries facing the economy. What will be the impact of all this government borrowing on the near and long term economic look [...]

Hyperventilation on Hyperinflation?

I’ve taken a much needed break from economics and I’m ready to ease back into the research groove. I’m still focused on currency exchange and things related to monetary policy so I thought I would bring up one of the current global concerns. Will the incredible amount of expansionary Monetary Policy combined with [...]

Is this ANY way to run an Economy?

The US economy is in a fragile state right now which begs the question: Why do our policy makers seem oblivious to lessons from the great meltdowns of the past?  Adam Posner of the Daily Beast asks the question out right: Does Obama Have a Plan B? Posner asserts that the administration appears to be [...]