Financial Economics

Archive for Financial Economics

Betting on Deflation

Krugman has been on the warpath the last few days, confirming my suspicion that my email is tapped. I had just told Jeff Tucker that I was done writing Mises Daily submissions for a while (I still have a bunch in the queue), and then BAM Krugman starts writing about Hayek. Anyway in this post […]

Scott Sumner Writes My Hatchet Job For Me

Prodded by an exchange (which I can’t find right now…) in the comments with Silas Barta, I sent the following email to Scott Sumner: Hi Scott, I am thinking of doing a Mises Daily article explaining what would actually happen if you were made Fed chairman. Obviously I don’t think we would get out of […]

An Oldie But Scary: Zeitgeist Addendum

I am writing a Mises Daily on this “they need more inflation to pay the interest” claim, and I am linking to Zeitgeist Addendum so people know what the position is. Boy oh boy, this is really a great description from 3:00 to about 18:00. After that I stop endorsing their presentation, but in that […]

Laffer on Why This Is the Calm Before the Storm

I have actually been surprised by how well the economy has held up so far. Obviously the economy is in terrible shape, by just about anyone’s reckoning, but if this is really going to be the Second Great Depression (as I’ve been saying for more than a year), it doesn’t seem too bad yet, does […]

Dean Baker vs. Murphy, Rematch

In our NPR radio debate (last Easter), Dean Baker held his own. I still think his Keynesian nostrums were wrong, of course, but I admit I didn’t deliver a knockout punch. Things don’t look so good for Dean when we grapple in print. In my ledger, my record is 1-0-1 against Mr. Baker. An excerpt: […]

“We Have Always Been At War With the Private Mortgage Market”

A headline from CNBC: “Who Would Finance Mortgages Without Fannie, Freddie?” I know, it’s crazy! I mean, without the government propping up home prices, they would probably fall until people could afford them without government assistance. And except for the US losing to another country in basketball in the Olympics, I really can’t think of […]

Old School Econ Versus Modern Financial Economics

OK kids, I am working on something that touches on the Sraffa-Hayek debate. (You know, the one you spent 3 classes on in grade school, right after the Boston Massacre.) Sraffa said matter-of-factly that in (long-run, steady-state) equilibrium, the spot and forward price is the same for all commodities, and that the “natural” or own-rate […]