Debt

Archive for Debt

A Sincere Question for the “We Owe It to Ourselves” Camp

David Stockman links to this old Krugman column on debt burdens. Here’s the key part of the article: Deficit-worriers portray a future in which we’re impoverished by the need to pay back money we’ve been borrowing. They see America as being like a family that took out too large a mortgage, and will have a […]

Reading List for Debt Burden Stuff

Roger Farmer gives a good list here, though most of the papers are formal and would be hard for a non-academic to read. However, it shows the extensive history in the literature of this stuff. Roger linked to this piece I did in the American Conservative, which I had totally forgotten. It is now going […]

Krugman Defenders 0, Murphy/Rowe 324

When the nutty Irishmen continue to roll their eyes at Nick Rowe on the debt burden stuff, it would be nice if they didn’t keep committing the same fallacy that Krugman did on Day One of this debate. (Here’s Gene telling Nick that the debt can’t burden future generations because they will inherit the bonds–meaning […]

Another Post on Government Debt, but Krugman Made Me Do It

An excerpt: To illustrate the situation, permit me a silly analogy. Imagine you saw the following debate among economists: KRUGMAN: People are always yelping about the dangers of guns, but so long as people wear bulletproof vests, they can’t possible be hurt by gunfire. ROWE and MURPHY: What the heck is he talking about?! Imagine a guy […]

Net Foreign Debt Bask

A Keynesian refrain that has arisen in the last few years is that a country that issues its own currency can only have a debt crisis if its institutions have a lot of net debt denominated in foreign currencies. For example, today Paul Krugman says Russia is in trouble for just this reason (even though […]

Is Turkey Benefiting From an Attack of the (Visible) Bond Vigilantes?

In addition to claiming that the bond vigilants are invisible (i.e. nonexistent), Paul Krugman has also argued that even if investors around the world suddenly lost confidence in Treasury bonds (because of fears over Uncle Sam’s profligacy), it would actually be good for the economy. For Krugman’s argument to apply, a country needs to (a) […]

Potpourri

==> David R. Henderson reports on media bias in the Denver school shooting (one and two). ==> Some of these kids’ test answers are literally “laugh out loud” funny. Be sure you get what’s going on with the Chinese immigrant one. ==> A classic Rothbard essay on dealing with water shortages. Yes, he lays out […]

Henderson/Murphy Tag Team the Keynesian Champ

I know I’m mixing wrestling and boxing metaphors. But there are few rules at Free Advice. David R. Henderson has a good critique of Krugman’s latest post about “unprecedented austerity” (Krugman’s term). For example, Krugman labels a sharp reduction in the rate of growth of spending as a “collapse in spending.” That’s simply not correct. […]