EJW Symposium on America’s Debt Crisis

I have just finished reading a fascinating symposium of papers on America's sovereign debt crisis published in the most recent Econ Journal Watch (volume 9, number 1: January 2012). It is introduced by Tyler Cowen, and includes short papers by Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, Garett Jones, Arnold Kling, Joseph Minarik, and Peter Wallinson. It is fascinating, if …

The Pharaoh’s Freedom

Pileus blogger Jason Sorens recently released his co-authored study "Freedom in the 50 States." This is now the second edition of the report, and it has deservedly generated a lot of attention. Even Paul Krugman has added his two cents. At Salon.com, Andrew Leonard criticizes the report under the sarcastic headline, "Why do liberals hate freedom so …

Wisconsin: “Like Pre-Nazi Germany”

The Heritage Foundation has put together a short video of interviews with a handful of people in Wisconsin who are protesting Governor Walker's proposed "budget repair bill." The video opens with a person saying, "What did Hitler do first? He busted the unions. First you take away the unions, and then you take away the …

Astrology Old and New

Last week an astronomer claimed that the earth's precession required a reevaluation of the zodiacal chart. His announcement created a firestorm, leading to stories of worry and even panic in all the major news outlets in America. It was initially shocking to see just how many people were discomfitted by this news, to see just …

Defending the Kochs

[Author's note: Although I wrote it before the election, I embargoed this essay until today, lest anyone think I was advocating for a political party or for an electoral victory. The sentiments expressed below are unrelated to any partisan agenda.] Billionaire businessmen and philanthropists Charles and David Koch have come in for a lot of …

Paul Krugman: Bring Back the Early ’40s (updated)

Whenever I'm at a loss for blog material, I can just check out the latest Krugman column. This Sunday's pleasure was entitled "1938 in 2010," and I'll just quote the silliest bit: From an economic point of view World War II was, above all, a burst of deficit-financed government spending, on a scale that would …

Greece is the (wrong) word

Here is the reason why a subscription to the WSJ is worth the money: because they run pieces by people like John Cochrane.   I've been trying to make sense of the Greece mess, but I was missing the key.  Here it is: Letting someone lose money on sovereign debt is the acid test for the …

Too Obvious to be True?

Brett Barkely writing in Econ Journal Watch: Large budget deficits represent a burden on the future, and debt accumulation eventually poses great problems. Economists writing for the public can either highlight such truths, neglect the issue, or try to allay worries or excuse or justify large budget deficits (as anti-recession policy, for example). Economists affiliated …

Krugman’s Hackery on Deficit Hawkery

Just about everything Paul Krugman writes nowadays is in some way related to rationalizing the Obama deficits. Now, Krugman's a smarter man than I, but I think it's pretty clear that his partisanship drives his economic analysis these days, rather than the other way around. Yesterday Krugman turned a case against the euro into a …

Krugman on Friedman on the Depression

I just recently came across this profile of Milton Friedman by Paul Krugman in the February 15, 2007 New York Review of Books. Krugman pays homage to Friedman's research as a macroeconomist, including his and Schwartz's Monetary History of the United States, best known for its explanation of the Great Depression as a monetary phenomenon. …