Sunday, July 31, 2011

Welcome to California, Elliot Hirshman

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San Diego State University, a place I admire a lot, just hired Elliot Hirshman as its new president, at a controversial salary . I am not ex...
2 comments:

If I am reading the deal correctly...

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....this is not a compromise, this is a capitulation.  I am starting to think that Cornell West's characterization of Obama was correct.
1 comment:
Friday, July 29, 2011

Jenny Schuetz, Elizabeth Currid-Halkett and I have a new paper that has nothing to do with the debt crisis

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It is here . Abstract:      The art market is famous – or notorious – for auctions at Sotheby’s and Christie’s at which works by well-...
1 comment:
Thursday, July 28, 2011

Are we a 15 percent society or an 18 percent society?

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Over the long term, federal revenues as a share of GDP have averaged around 18  19 percent over the past 20 years .  Currently, federal rev...
1 comment:
Tuesday, July 26, 2011

This is probably a crazy, stupid idea for getting around the debt ceiling, but...

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...here goes anyway.  Consider a 30-year Treasury Bond with a coupon of 4 percent and a par value of $100.  Treasuries pay every six months...
4 comments:

Don't lump everyone together, Professor Summers

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In his response to Mark Thoma's "Great Divide ," post, Larry Summers writes : Second, as Keynes’ comments on the advantages o...
4 comments:

Homer Simpson, Spock, Reaction Functions, and the Debt Ceiling

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Imagine a game between Spock and Homer Simpson.  Spock's utility is maximized by saving the galaxy from destruction.  Homer Simpson'...

The Mortgage Professor is Worried

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Jack Guttentag writes: ...“ If a default had the horrendous consequences you describe, and these induce Congress and the Administration t...
Monday, July 25, 2011

Bad belt-tightening metaphors

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A commonplace among politicians that drives me crazy is that "government must live within its means, just like families." The pr...
2 comments:
Sunday, July 24, 2011

Caltrans needs to fix this sign

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Visitors to LA get misled by this old freeway sign on the Pasadena Freeway headed south: The problem is that it is not an interchange wit...
1 comment:
Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Tastes in Tax Policy

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I confess that I like the broad outlines of the Gang of Six plan.  I don't have a problem with people like me having to wait longer to r...
Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Was it Murdoch who ditched the six columns?

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This morning, James Taranto defends the Wall Street Journal against Joe Nocera's charges that the paper uses "Democrat" as an...
1 comment:
Monday, July 18, 2011

Lisa Schweitzer, again, writes something I wish I had written

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She begins: I think one of the reasons why there is a resistance to otherwise nice things like local foods and bicycling concerns the ofte...
1 comment:

How does Michael Boskin do math?

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He writes in the Wall Street Journal this morning: The lower marginal tax rates in the 1980s led to the best quarter-century of economic p...
2 comments:
Saturday, July 16, 2011

Why can't we have them?

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In Asian and European hotels, there is a master switch near the front door of each guest room that is triggered by the insertion of a hotel ...
2 comments:

Good bye Wall Street Journal.

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I have been reading the Wall Street Journal pretty much every day since I was in high school (yes, I was that nerdy--in that, and so many o...
1 comment:
Tuesday, July 12, 2011

One reason HAMP failed

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A remarkable interagency group of economists wrote a paper  that investigated the NPV test that is at the heart of HAMP: for a borrower to g...
7 comments:
Friday, July 08, 2011

Why is reducing government jobs considered a free lunch?

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Politicians love to brag about cutting government work forces.  This month, while the private sector added 57,000 jobs, government shed 39,0...
7 comments:
Wednesday, July 06, 2011

What is the incidence of the Fannie-Freddie bailout?

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There is lot of rending of garments and gnashing of teeth that the FF bailout will cost something like $300 billion, including the implicit ...
2 comments:
Tuesday, July 05, 2011

So Congressman, how do you get to 19 percent?

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From Mark Thoma's blog , I pick up the following quote from Paul Ryan: RYAN: What happens if you do what he’s saying, is then you can...