All Posts

Archive for All Posts

DeLong on the State of Macroeconomics

A rare post in which I agree wholeheartedly with Brad DeLong (HT2 Bob Roddis): The Economist gives us economists too much credit… I would like to draw a distinction between economics as a way of thinking–the way good economists think, at least–and academic economics as a profession. Economics as a way of thinking is, I […]

Hillary Clinton, Pod Person?

Once you start entertaining the notion that there are secret groups running world governments, you see evidence all over the place. What’s really funny is that, if you want to debate a conspiracy theorist, you can’t say, “You have no proof of that plan.” Because the conspiracy theorist will give you actual quotes from people […]

Last One: BLS’ SA CPI as of July 17, 2009

Another post for posterity: I want to take a snapshot of the BLS’ figures for actual and seasonally adjusted CPI for the first half of 2009, since I predict that they will revise those figures later on, in order to suppress the reported monthly inflation rates. Month….CPI….SA CPI=====================Dec08…210.228…211.577Jan…..211.143…212.174Feb…..212.193…213.007Mar…..212.709…212.714Apr…..213.240…212.671May…..213.856…212.876Jun…..215.693…214.459===================== And while we have the numbers in […]

Glenn Beck vs. Goldman Sachs

Glenn Beck does a surprisingly good job explaining all the shenanigans involving Goldman Sachs the last year. (HT2 Wenzel, who was on to Goldman a long time ago.) I’m glad to see that this stuff is finally going mainstream. Of course, it’s a bit like the Jedi Council finally realizing Palpatine is the Sith lord, […]

The Problems With Materialism

Hi my name’s Bob and I’m a recovering materialist. I’d like to thank my sponsor Gene, who talked me down from the ledge a few years ago… Over at Crash Landing, my frequent critic Tokyo Tom decided to throw caution to the winds and went head to head(s?) against Gene Callahan and me on materialism. […]

China Stimulus Versus US Stimulus

In an earlier post, I remarked on Brad DeLong’s failure to reflect on the (reported) fact that China has booming economic growth even as its consumer prices are falling. Instead of dealing with that problem (since it is rather inconvenient for those warning about a deflationary trap), DeLong simply titled his post, “China’s Larger Stimulus […]

Krugman Tri-blechta

I told Jeff Tucker (editor of Mises.org) that I would lay off Krugman for a while, since I don’t want the Austrians to be the Party of No. But I didn’t make any promises about Free Advice. Today Krugman has three contiguous blog posts that really set me off. In this one Krugman says “Matthew […]

Another Krugman Non Sequitur, This One on Health Care

Look at this: A trivial but telling example Example of what? Of the absurdity of the US health care system. Today’s mail brought a letter from Princeton: all faculty members must supply copies of their marriage licenses and of their 2008 tax forms if they want to have their spouses continue to receive health benefits. […]