Month: January 2008

  • Why nominating Clinton would be a Very Bad Thing

    Electability. There’s a damn good chance she could lose to McCain. She has the highest negative approval numbers of any candidate in polling history. (I don’t think she deserves that hatred, but there it is.) No presidential candidate with her negatives has ever won. She would turn out the Republicans in frantic droves. Obama would…

  • Why Did Edwards Quit?

    Even after his conference call with supporters yesterday (I’ve only seen a brief recap of the call), the question  remains: why? Why did he quit, and why now? His explanations still just don’t feel satisfyingly explanatory. Party unity? Getting poverty firmly on the agenda? Here’s what I would like to believe: He saw that he…

  • Gas-Guzzler Tax: Just Turn it On

    Some years ago, in one of the few instances where the NYT actually published one of my letters, I ranted about how we should institute a heavy tax on low-efficiency vehicles. To the Editor: Gregg Easterbrook’s proposal for a 50-cent-a-gallon increase in the federal gasoline tax (”The 50-Cent-a-Gallon Solution,” Op-Ed, May 25) is absolutely on…

  • Food Stamps as Fiscal Stimulus?

    Megan McArdle, in an uncharacteristically badly-reasoned (and really rather mean-spirited)  post, ridicules an increase in food-stamp benefits as a fiscal stimulus measure. I responded in her comments, but I’m so inordinately proud of my response that I can’t resist posting it here: Geez, Megan, I’m sorry but that ranks as one of the lamer posts…

  • The Long Decline in Equities

    Megan McArdle ridicules an analysis that looks at stock market returns adjusted for the dollar’s value (based on a basket of currencies). Short story, by that measure investors have been big losers (chart) over the last seven years. The author uses it to bash Bush’s "ownership society." Megan, who seems to be responding more to…

  • When to Use Fiscal Stimulus

    Dang it all, but Greg Mankiw does have me going this week. Guy’s got a fine mind, want to see him applying it more acutely. Yesterday he pointed to Alan Blinder’s 2004 The Case Against the Case Against Discretionary Fiscal Policy (PDF), wherein Blinder gives three possible reasons to use fiscal stimulus (note the “or’…

  • We Knew That Already

    Greg Mankiw cites a citation of a 1994 paper analyzing fiscal and monetary responses to recessions. From the abstract: …Federal Reserve typically responds to downturns with prompt and large reductions in interest rates. Discretionary fiscal policy, in contrast, rarely reacts before the trough in economic activity, and even then the responses are usually small. ……

  • Gretchen Morgenson Underdoes Herself

    In today’s column, one the our best watchdogging financial journalists takes an odd analytical tack–toward not terribly important news. She gets all excited about the returns calculator provided by FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority)–as she should. It has a database of the funds, so you can easily pull post-fee returns comparisons and graphs for different…

  • Is Fiscal Stimulus Just Stupid?

    Greg Mankiw uses rhetorical questions to argue that the government should not be using fiscal stimulus to prevent a recession. He asks (in my words): If monetary policy is the strongest lever, and if fiscal stimulus limits the Fed’s monetary options–ties their hands–why are we considering fiscal stimulus? But he’s posing it as a zero-sum…

  • Mankiw Goes Off the Cuff

    Greg Mankiw is a widely and justifiably respected economist. But sometimes in his blog he prattles on just like the rest of us, absent the empirics that he should be bringing to the party. So here. He ridicules the CBO for even bothering to analyze a temporary increase in food stamp benefits to effect short-term…

  • Warren Buffett: Estate Tax Good

    Buffett testified to Congress on Monday. Why isn’t the blogosphere talking about this? Short story, Buffett is foursquare behind the estate tax. He points out that the basis step-up at death (cap gains taxes just go away) is a huge gift to survivors, 99.5% of whom pay no estate taxes. “If people insist on renaming…

  • Tax the Rich! And make us all richer?

    Lane Kenworthy takes up the tax-rates-on-the-rich-versus-GDP-growth discussion (hat tip to Free Exchange for the pointer). His key point: more important than top marginal rate, is the effective rate that top earners pay. The post is also quite interesting in concentrating on  the GDP-growth effect of taxes on the top 1% of earners. Unfortunately this chart…

  • The Economist’s New Gilded Age

    Since The Economist chose not to publish my incredibly cogent response to a recent “Economics Focus” column, I’ll share it with them (and you) here: The new (improved) Gilded Age Dec 19th 2007 The very rich are not that different from you and me; or less different, perhaps, than they used to be The article…

  • Pinker on Morality: Libs and Cons

    The NYT Magazine‘s cover story this week is “The Moral Instinct” by Steven Pinker. (Full disclosure: He’s my idol; I am such a groupie for this guy.) Here’s one of the things I like about the article: He cites five “spheres” of morality devised by psychologist Jonathan Haidt: not harming, fairness, loyalty, respect for authority,…

  • Nature: Good?

    Megan McArdle nicely skewers the Naturalistic Fallacy today, responding to an article in Reason, quoting Lew Rockwell: Reason quoting Rockwell: “Wishing to associate with members of one’s own race, nationality, religion, class, sex, or even political party is a natural and normal human impulse.” Megan: Anyone who has ever observed a two-year-old knows that lying,…

  • Government: BAD? — Part 4: Higher Taxes, More Prosperity

    This one came as quite a surprise even to me. In general, among developed countries, those with higher taxes over the last thirty years have higher GDP per capita today than lower-taxing countries. I think the graph speaks for itself. Related posts: Government: BAD? — Part 3: Taxes and GDP Growth Supply Side: Are We…