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Potpourri

* I deconstruct Brad DeLong’s stimulus accounting. * My former student Gennady Stolyarov II reviews my Depression book. I don’t think he is accusing me of confusion but I can’t be sure. * I don’t really see what the big deal is here. The White House has announced that it will formally pledge to commitments […]

I Am Thankful That I Bought a Bunch of Gold Last Year

I have in-laws arriving in town as I type, so I won’t be blogging much over the next few days. I just wanted to drop a note alerting my more Ivory Tower readers that gold smashed into new territory (again) today. Right now it’s $1,186.10 / oz. Also let me link to this great EPJ […]

Potpourri

* Oops, that reported 3.5% real GDP growth in the 3q is more like 2.8%. (So they exaggerated it by 25%, big deal.) I liked this line: “That was a touch below market expectations for a growth pace of 2.9 percent.” Does that mean investors were forecasting that the government had exaggerating the initial reading […]

CNBC Casually Discussing Gold-Backed World Currency

You might think, “Ah sweet! That’s what we want, right?” Well, yeah, sort of, except the reason we’ll get there is through a dollar collapse, not a Rothbardian revival. MercedesRules sent me the below clip; start watching around 6:45. (And I forget how to get rid of the blank spaces below…)

Dean Baker or Dean Martin on Government Interest Payments?

(I know that post title is weak; I got nothin’.) The Keynesians (e.g. Krugman and DeLong) have been high-fiving Dean Baker over his response to the NYT article which has the audacity to say that the federal government’s $1 trillion+ deficits may come with some strings attached. (BTW I like Baker; I debated him on […]

The "Unexpected Inflation" Will Show Up In 24 Days

For a while I’ve been thinking that come January, we will be over the hump of the sharp CPI declines in 4q 2008. At that point the financial press won’t be able to point to year/year declines in prices, and I will be very curious to see if they finally admit we are not stuck […]

Gold Briefly Breaks $1,170 / oz.

The quote right now is $1169.90, but the headline on CNBC said gold had broken $1,170 / oz. Incidentally, can the Mishites (followers of Mish) explain why other commodities are doing pretty well too? I.e. my very crude understanding is that Mish is saying something like, “Our economy runs on credit. There is a huge […]