Asymptosis: Always Approaching

Category: Economics

  • “Springboard,” Not Safety Net

    I wrote an email to economist Alan Blinder at Princeton last week (which he was kind enough to respond to), in response to his NYT piece addressing our current…issues. “social safety net”…America’s is in tatters…we need both repairs and a new metaphor. Lyndon B. Johnson had it right when he called upon the government to…

  • Kristol’s Conservative Economic Cluelessness

    Now that he’s finished his series of columns giving sage political advice to John McCain (hey John, how’d that Palin pick work out for you?), Bill Kristol thinks he has some good ideas for a Republican party that is wondering whether it has any apparent reason for  continued existence. To begin with, Republicans should: …develop…

  • Want Prosperity? Tax the Rich

    The right-wing blogosphere has lately been touting a table that the Norquistina Tax Foundation cherry-picked from a recent OECD study, showing that the U.S. has the most progressive income tax system in the OECD–perhaps excepting Ireland. This may well be true. But I’m not totally sure what they’re trying to say–except maybe that the U.S.…

  • A Land of Magical Thinking: Becoming a Millionaire

    I saw mention of this statistic in a blog comment last week, and went looking. Here is the central faith-based delusion regarding The American Dream: Belief: 45% of Americans think it is somewhat or very likely that they will become wealthy in their lifetimes.* Fact: in 2005, 5.7% of households were worth a million dollars…

  • The Man Who Shorted Subprime (Must Read)

    The End of Wall Street's Boom – National Business News – Print – Portfolio.com. Run don't walk to read this. It's gripping. About Steve Eisman, who started shorting every subprime play in sight back in 2005, while simultaneously proclaiming market insanity to anyone who would listen–in decidedly not-fit-to-print language. It's long, but you won't be…

  • Republicans Create Opportunity? Yeah, Right.

    Republicans constantly proclaim that inequality is the price of prosperity. If things are more unequal, there’s more incentive–and crucially, opportunity–for people to better themselves. Everyone benefits from that. Except it’s not true. Let’s think about Joe the Plumber, who made $40K in 2006 but would like to buy the plumbing business he works for–for a…

  • Mankiw’s Right: Money’s Not the Incentive

    Subtitle: Pipe Dreams Greg Mankiw makes more than a quarter-million dollars a year. We know that, because he's expecting to pay the 2-4% payroll tax surcharge under Obama's tax plan, on any extra dollars he earns. He's also planning to leave his children more $3.5 million dollars (the current inheritance tax exclusion) when he dies.…

  • All Cashed Up with Nowhere to Go: What Caused the Depression(s), and What to Do About It

    I’ve been meaning to post about this great two–part article by James Livingston (H/T to Mark Thoma), on the causes of the Great Depression and the current…whatever it is. Livingston’s explanation for both cases (in my words): There were oceans of money with not enough productive uses available (like, investments in physical plants and wages–things…

  • Europe vs. U.S.: Family Time Versus Four-by-Fours and Two-by-Fours

    Finally! Someone has come back at me (well he didn’t know he was talking to me) with the key, perhaps-trumping argument on my Europe vs. US longatribes. I gave this argument away in a previous post, hoping someone would pick it up, but have yet to hear it well enunciated elsewhere. Summary of my arguments:…

  • Study Sez: Rich States Are Full of Swingers

    No, I’m not commenting on their sexual mores. I’m talking swing voters. A new study (PDF) by Joe Stone and Steve Hayes suggests that most or all of the market-crash-fueled movement to Obama in these closing weeks is likely to be in rich states. If you’re thinking battlegrounds/close contests, that means Colorado, Virgina, and Nevada.…

  • Reagan, Bush, and McCain: Selling America First

    This 2003 article by Warren Buffet–explaining in his usual pithy manner how we’re frittering away our future well-being by borrowing abroad and selling off our assets–got me looking once again at our country’s long-term financial position in the world. And once again, I came across one of those profound inflection points at–you guessed it–1980. The…

  • Milton Friedman Caused The Great Depression

    Yes, yes, I know he was only 17 when the market crashed. But still. As Friedman pointed out quite accurately, inept (excessively tight) monetary policy caused the downturn to go much deeper and last much longer than it should have. Pretty much everyone will stipulate to that. And hence–here's his logical non sequitur–government and the…

  • How to Avoid Regulation: Smart Regulation

    Every economist agrees that regulation has the potential to stifle economic growth. But every economist also agrees that we need regulation to make markets efficient (and relatively stable). Given those two givens, free-market advocates should be jumping into the fray, proposing smart, targeted, easily manageable, surgical regulation, that obviates the need for heavy-handed, clunky, hard-to-manage…

  • Pro-Growth Republicans III: Yeah, Right.

    Following up on previous posts here, here, and here, yet some more debunking of this myth (Update: yet more here and here): Various have shot spitballs at this chart, but add it to all the others in previous posts–showing that over the long haul, Democrats deliver prosperity and Republicans don’t–and the notion that Republican policies…

  • Fareed Zakaria for President

    I just came across Fareed Zakaria's The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad at my mother's house, read it, and came away wildly impressed. His basic thesis is that what we want is constitutional liberalism (classic sense of liberalism, as in Milton Friedman's usage, though not necessarily via his prescriptions)–not a priori,…

  • I’m Patriotic: I Pay Taxes

    Don Pedro says it better than anyone else I’ve heard, with this woulda-coulda-said-it response for Biden: “Governor Palin, if paying taxes is not considered patriotic in your neighborhood, who is going to pay for the body armor that will protect your son in Iraq? Who is going to pay for the bailout you endorsed? If…

  • “Pro-Growth” Republicans. Debunked. Again. Some More.

    A while back I posted some comparative numbers for postwar economic indicators, Dems versus Pubs. Clear results for the clear-eyed. Brad Delong has even more. Just one here, for your delectation: How dare these people call themselves conservatives? Related posts: Conservative “Intellectual” “Ascendancy” Conservatives Love to Point Out that Personal Incentives Matter Pubs Don’t Cut…

  • The Problem Was Not Deregulating. The Problem Was Not Regulating.

    Most economists agree: deregulation is not what caused today’s problem. (The repeal of Glass-Steagal, for instance–the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act allowing commercial banks to act as investments banks, and vice-versa–wasn’t the cause. It might even be one of the reasons things aren’t worse than they are.) What’ they’re not saying: not regulating is what caused the problem.…

  • Hiding the Bailout

    Everyone has their two bits worth. Mine: Aside from the whole thing being incredibly vague and relying far too much on the Secretary's "discretion," this passage from the CBO's description is egregious. …the federal budget would not record the gross cash disbursements for purchases of troubled assets (or cash receipts for their eventual sale), but…

  • Ahh, for European Stability…

    If there’s one thing people would like more of these days, it’s stability. When the economy rockets up one year, then plummets or stagnates the next, it’s bad for everyone–especially those farther down the income scale, who have less recourse in face of national and global events that are completely beyond their control. This got…

  • Is There a Credit Crunch?

    Not on Kiva. This site lets you make direct micro-loans to small businesspeople across the world. The only problem, right now: there aren't enough loan requests to match all the willing lenders. You basically have to lurk, hitting refresh constantly, to make a loan before a new requested loan gets fully subscribed (like, within minutes).…