Economics

Archive for Economics

More Evidence That Scott Sumner Is Out of Touch

Look kids, I’m as sick of the Sumner-bashing as you are. But it is apparently my duty, since nobody else is catching this stuff. If not me, who? First of all, remember back when Garett Jones was talking about sticky prices and how he thought debt was a really good candidate for this? Then Sumner […]

There’s Really Been a Lot of Real Shocks to the Economy

The venerable von Pepe sends me a good post by Larry White, who isn’t as sure as many of his colleagues that the world economy today is primarily troubled by inadequate demand: Scott Sumner told us in September 2009 that “the real problem was nominal,” that is, the recession and its high unemployment were primarily […]

The Fatal Conceit

[UPDATE below.] The title of this post refers, of course, to Hayek’s warning about really smart guys thinking they understand a complex system well enough to start tinkering with it. Nick Rowe has had the generosity (and intrepidity) to hang out in the comments of my post criticizing his optimism over QE3. He told me […]

Nick Rowe Is Going to Excommunicate Me

Wow. I have been immersing myself in the monetary economics blogosphere discussions, and I don’t likes what I sees. In this post I’ll talk about Nick Rowe, whom you may recall I previously dubbed a kung fu master. As with Scott Sumner, so too with Nick: I want to preface this post by saying he’s […]

Tom Woods Keeps Krugman’s Feet to the Fire

Tom Woods has posted another video, this one on Krugman’s rhetorical questions about Austrians and MMMF: A few points: ==> I totally forgot to be snarky about this, but Tom’s video reminded me: I thought Krugman said he wouldn’t debate me, because he didn’t want to give a platform to Austrian views? So now we […]

Explainer: Why I Claim Scott Sumner Is Insane in the Brain

I often say that I think Scott Sumner is “insane.” Now, on the one hand I’m obviously just joking; as I’ve mentioned a few times, Scott has a good sense of humor and I think he (mostly) appreciates my jabs (though not of course my policy recommendations). On the other hand, though, I choose the […]

Potpourri

==> Joe Salerno replies to George Selgin regarding Krugman’s challenge to the Austrians on MMMF. I actually think both Joe and George are wrong: They both use the phrase “could care less” when, in context, it is clear that they meant “couldn’t care less.” (Joe uses it in the post, George in his second reply, […]

Potpourri

==> Here’s my American Conservative article from a week or two ago, talking about the myth of British austerity. If I do say so myself, my second chart (the third in the article) is a really good rebuttal to Krugman on this topic. I think it deals well with the “they have austerity relative to […]