Economics

Archive for Economics

Subcommittee Hearing on the Fed and Oil Prices

Ah, Desolation Jones posts the video faster than the Congressional staffers get it to me. Yet another example of the private sector’s efficiency… If any of you are going to pop a bag of corn and watch this whole thing, can you pleeeease do a Murphy compilation? I am assuming it’s not that much of […]

Murphy Written Testimony to Congress on the Fed and Oil Prices

This is what I formally submitted to the great deliberative body, but the actual subcommittee hearing was surprisingly boisterous. I really hope they make the video available. Incredibly, Dennis Kucinich out of nowhere asked me what I thought should be done with the Fed, so I thought it would be fine to answer frankly. (I […]

In the Pit of Despair

The resourceful von Pepe sends this link. I’m not making any promises, but it’s possible it will have streaming coverage of the testimony of me, Dean Baker, and all my friends. (It starts today–Wednesday–at 1:30pm Eastern time.) The topic is the Federal Reserve and gasoline prices.

Krugman Doubles Down on Inflation

He’s sticking to his guns, I’ll give him that. Krugman has already gone the route of defining the relevant (price) inflation measure as one that strips out energy and food, despite the obvious (and comic) problems with doing that. Now he’s taken his Phillips Curve mindset to the next level: US core inflation has ticked […]

Deep Thoughts From Mises

I’m working on a study guide for Mises’ The Theory of Money and Credit and came across this neat quote on page 202: “In a social order that is entirely founded on the use of money and in which all accounting is done in terms of money, the destruction of the monetary system means nothing […]

My Future Self May Agree With Daniel Kuehn…

…but as of right now, his post on “temporal autarky” strikes me as one of the oddest arguments for market failure I’ve ever encountered. (And he’s got stiff competition: Paul Krugman doesn’t like the food that people in England eat, ergo the market doesn’t work.) Now I feel a responsibility to faithfully reproduce Daniel’s argument, […]

Apocalypse Soon: What Would Landsburg Do?

Sam T. sends me this profile of the people who think the world will end quite soon. I haven’t looked into this stuff too carefully, but my inner Steve Landsburg leads me to ask: For these people who think the world’s end is imminent, and who are Christians (though I don’t know if they are […]

Klassic Krugman Kontradiction

So there’s a new paper [.pdf], full of regressions, confidence intervals and the like, purporting to show that the Obama stimulus package destroyed jobs on net. Full disclosure of a busy consultant: I didn’t actually read the paper. From reading this critique by Noah Smith of “Noahpinion” (whom I am going to add to my […]