Asymptosis: Always Approaching

Month: October 2011

  • Krugman: “while we were arguing about NAFTA, Sauron was gathering his forces in Mordor”

    via EPIphenomena – NYTimes.com. Related posts: Must. Make. Gubmint. Smaller. Proofiness! It’s About Bloody Time. Sheesh. Did I Mention Mentioning that It’s the Health Care Costs, Stupid? We Should Make Janitors Work Longer Because Lawyers Are Living Longer

  • Yeah, Right: Government Regulation Is the Problem

    Bruce Bartlett points us to this: Where do these numbers come from? The Bureau of Labor Statistics asks businesses why they laid people off, and the businesses tell them. Welcome to the reality-based community. Related posts: Reagan Staffer Bartlett Quotes Conservative Icon Wills, Eviscerating Republicans Choosing a VP For All the Right Reason Drowning the Baby…

  • #OWS — How Wall Street Capital Destroys Capitalism

    Yves Smith points to this passage from Ron Suskind’s Confidence Men, about the business model behind private-equity funds: Charlie Hallac, a top deputy to Larry Fink at BlackRock and head of the firm’s analytical arm, BlackRock Solutions, distilled it down with precision: “Of every twenty deals, the large aggressive PE firm expects seventeen of the…

  • #OWS: Saving Capitalism from the “Capitalists”?

    I had one of those big Aha moments earlier this year — as is so often the case, while reading one of Steve Randy Waldman’s posts. Karl Marx was a “sharp analyst”, but a “terrible futurist”, he says (emphasis mine for easy skimming; read his whole post, in fact everything he’s written). … the story…

  • The Reserve Requirement Is Just “a Service Charge for Legalized Counterfeiting”

    Nice line from The New Arthurian. (Update: He reminds me that I should have included his comment, which I agree with: “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”) If the reserve requirement is 10%, it shaves about ten percent off the interest banks receive on their money-printing loans. If their loan rates are running at 5%,…

  • Arnold Kling: Non-Acute Health Care Is a “Status Good”

    He really said that. I guess people take their kids to annual checkups because they want to signal their high status to others. This is totally in keeping with Jonathan Haidt’s findings: on measures that “have anything to do with compassion,” libertarians are at the very bottom of the political spectrum. Likewise Tyler Cowen’s paean…

  • More on “Savings” and Investment: I’m Not Alone

    Three updates on this topic: 1. I’m pleased to receive at-least partial support for the notion bruited in my previous post on this topic (“Savings Equals Investment Equals…Zero?”) in comments from Nick Rowe, whose knowledge of economic theory and Economics history exceeds mine as Jupiter exceeds Mercury: Why *should* we define “saving” as “Y-T-C”? We (economists)…

  • A Lean, Mean Fighting Machine: Radical Plan for Cutting the Defense Budget and Reconfiguring the U.S. Military

    This is not some limp-wristed notion from a coastal-elite dressing-gown blogger. (That would be me, caricatured uncharitably but not completely inaccurately.) It’s from the man who one Army National Training Center official described,* in 1997, as “the best war fighter the army has got.” Douglas Macgregor thinks we can cut the defense budget by $280 billion over ten…

  • Getting In and Out of Unemployment: 1967 to 2011

    I find the following graph singularly depressing. It shows the chances of becoming unemployed (red), and the chances of exiting unemployment (blue), since 1967. The odds of becoming unemployed today are basically identical to 1967. The probability of exiting unemployment — the “escape rate” — has plummeted over that period. (Though it was roughly flat…

  • I Guess the Right Wing Hasn’t Been Paying Attention for the Last Thirty Years

    Tyler Cowen: Anyone — Keynesian or otherwise — paying attention to the last thirty years of empirical macro never expected much crowding out of financial capital in the first place. Google hit #3 out of 952,000, from June 1, 2011: Two words explain all you need to know about our national economic debate. I think…

  • Occupy Wall Street Trouncing Tea Party, 54% to 27%

    View Very or Somewhat Favorably: Tea Party (Q8): 27% Occupy Wall Street (Q11): 54% Not that I think this “proves” anything. Hell 60% of Americans (say they) believe in angels. Just sayin’: Go Team! Topline Results of Oct. 9-10, 2011, TIME Poll | Swampland | TIME.com. Related posts: Tea Partiers: Old, White, Rich, Educated Men…

  • Scott Sumner: “The 2009 stimulus was sabotaged.” By the Fed.

    Not everyone (notably including me) has time to read everything Scott Sumner writes. But you really should — even if you don’t believe or agree with it all (like, his conventional notions about not taxing earnings and gains on financial assets). This — on the interacting dynamics of fiscal and monetary policy — is a don’t-miss:…

  • Palin: “Only by empowering the individual will our economies be rescued.”

    “When cronyism thrives, innovation, prosperity, and freedom suffer because small innovative firms get shoved outside,” she said. “Only by empowering the individual will our economies be rescued.” Funny that she doesn’t mention the opposite alternative — disempowering the cronies (politically and financially). Could that possibly be because she are one? via Slovakia rejects Euro bailout…

  • Is the Elasticity of Labor Demand at Zero?

    I’m reminded of the joke about two ladies meeting at the races at Ascot. “Oh dahling,” says the first, “what a wonderful hat. Where did you get it?” The second, looking down her nose condescendingly and slightly embarrassed, sneers, “Dear, we have our hats.” Do American employers have all the workers they need or want given…

  • Savings Equals Investment Equals … Zero?

    Update: See a follow-up post to this post and the comments, here. Randall Wray bills this image — in wonkish humor that I know many of my Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)-savvy readers will get — as “The Most Subversive Sign Seen at the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Protest.” Love it! Which prompts me to finally publish this post,…

  • WHERE THE FUCK ARE ALL THE JOBS YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE CREATING??

    I’m actually not going where you might think based on this post’s title. I’ve been there often enough. Instead: In response to my post of this on Facebook, a friend of mine (yes, a real-world friend) writes: I am one of those people who has been severely affected by the job crisis. I am educated…

  • Quasi/Market Monetarists: Will You Tell Me a Story?

    I was poking around in data as is my wont, sussing things out, and put the following graph together. It quite caught my eye. The five-year averages make it a lot easier to see the big picture. At first glance this looks like a profound secular shift in the economy. (Tyler Cowen: Wow, that is a…

  • A Brief History of Corporate Whining

    Pretty much says it all… No related posts.

  • Regulatory uncertainty is killing business investment: ya right

    Compared to, for instance, the Bush years, that hotbed of slashed regulations and rising business investment? Oh, wait. But hey: don’t let facts interfere with your fondest fantasies. Here’s the fairy story: …employment growth is sluggish because firms are turning down … opportunities to make goods and services that are profitable today (current sales are very profitable) because they fear…

  • Koch Brother Lures Hayek to America With…Social Security!

    Yes, the depths of conservative hypocrisy are bottomless, but this really takes all. From The Nation (ht Brad Delong, emphasis mine): Koch invited Hayek to serve as the institute’s “distinguished senior scholar” … Hayek initially declined Koch’s offer … Hayek explains that he underwent gall bladder surgery in Austria earlier that year, which only heightened…