Matt Yglesias

Archive for Matt Yglesias

Keynesian Policies: Not Dumb, But Foolish

My sympathetic analysis of Matt Yglesias’ awkward situation vis-a-vis Argentina. The money quote: So there you have it, folks: Countries that historically have been ill-governed should follow Argentina’s lead by defaulting on their debts and debasing their currencies, but they should stop right before the bad consequences of these actions come home to roost. Simple […]

The Krugman/Sumner Showdown–In Layman’s Terms

The blogosphere has been abuzz (though nothing compared to the Great Debt Debate of 2012) with activity centered on whether the year 2013 provided a good test of the economic views of Keynesians like Paul Krugman versus Market Monetarists such as Scott Sumner. These things often get bogged down in technical minutiae. In the present […]

But the Progressives Told Us Abenomics Would Be Good for Japan

Chris S. gave me the idea for my latest post at Mises Canada, by pointing out that Japan’s Cabinet just approved another “stimulus” package to help its faltering economic recovery. Chris reminded me that earlier in the year Krugman had held up Japan’s “Abenomics” as a model for US deficit hawks to follow. As I […]

Matt Yglesias and Josh Barro Admit They Have No Honor

I promise you guys, I was going to let this go. I said my piece about Yglesias’ “go ahead and lie about having a fake kid, it gives you money” post. But then Josh Barro and he had to double down on it, with Yglesias actually referring to the reaction to his original post as […]

Would a Keynesian Lie to Advance His Political Agenda?

I don’t know, but Matt Yglesias would lie to save money on soap. Danny Sanchez complained about this in strong terms on Facebook, and I assumed he was exaggerating. But nope, it doesn’t even sound very ironic; Yglesias is literally telling people to they should lie to Amazon so they can get stuff cheaper. I […]

Scott Sumner Wants to Take Income Away From All of Us

In a post titled, “Income is meaningless, example #388” Scott quotes from Matt Yglesias who wrote: One issue this poses is that analysis of political issues in terms of “income” quartiles can get pretty misleading. A married couple where dad earns $65,000 a year and mom works part time bringing home $15,000 a year is […]

Chris Koresko Wins the Internet on ObamaCare/Katrina Comparison

David R. Henderson, like me, was surprised to see Matt Yglesias suggest that the failure of ObamaCare would result in zero deaths. (In contrast, Yglesias argued, President Bush’s failure under Katrina did result in deaths.) But look at Chris Koresko’s take on the ObamaCare/Katrina analogy: Actually the whole Bush/Katrina Obama/ACA comparison looks pretty shaky. If […]

What Did Yglesias Know About Health Insurance Cancellations, And When Did He Know It?

I’m still trying to find a mea culpa where Yglesias discusses his off-the-mark predictions about how great the ObamaCare rollout would be. Nothing yet, but in the meantime I ran across this: “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.” That was the promise Barack Obama made to insured Americans when stumping for […]