Debt

Archive for Debt

Resolution of the Sumner/Richman Showdown

[UPDATE below.] You may recall that I was earlier puzzled at Scott Sumner’s commentary on a Sheldon Richman article talking about Cantillon effects. If you care, I now have the resolution, because of Scott’s follow-up post. Scott actually doesn’t dispute anything in what the Austrians have in mind when they say “it matters who gets […]

Jon Stewart on the Fiscal Cliff

This guy is so awesome. He can even sing. The Daily Show with Jon StewartGet More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

We Already Went Over the Fiscal Cliff

My latest article at The American Conservative. Some excerpts: The hemming and hawing over the looming “fiscal cliff” is akin to passengers fighting over who gets to sit in the first class seats in a jumbo jet that just ran out of fuel. The U.S. government already sent the country over the cliff years ago; […]

Uno Momento Por Favor, Senor Krugman

I am not going to bother employing my army of employees to fact-check this, but it looks plausible enough to quote and walk away… (HT2 somebody in the comments of an earlier post.) Paul Krugman, May 2012: Matt Yglesias, who just spent time in Argentina, writes about the lessons of that country’s recovery following its exit […]

An Oldie But Goodie

Reading Krugman’s op ed on the “fiscal phantom menace” I was struck by this assertion: You’ve heard the story many times: Supposedly, any day now investors will lose faith in America’s ability to come to grips with its budget failures. When they do, there will be a run on Treasury bonds, interest rates will spike, […]

Krugman’s Conversion to the MMT Side Is (Almost) Complete

Krugman yesterday: There’s an interesting mix of contrast and similarity between the policy debates in Britain and the United States right now. In both countries — as in every country that retains its own currency and has debts denominated in that national currency — interest rates are near record lows… It’s very hard to come […]

Krugman Ignores His Own Theory and Misses An Important Piece of European History

This whole “what danger is there for a country issuing its own currency?” argument is really slippery. First of all, what these people really mean is, “What danger is there for a country issuing its own currency and in which most of its debts are denominated in this currency?” I.e., even on their own terms, […]

Potpourri

==> Nick Rowe agrees with me that Steve Landsburg’s analysis of paying down government debt is only true if we assume perfect certainty. (Steve I think would totally agree, and that’s why I said in my original post that this was an argument over specifying assumptions for the reader, not about the implications of those […]