Homines libenter quod volunt credunt
Posted in Flotsam and Jetsam on Jul 27th, 2015
I’m always bemused when white American liberals regard libertarians as “conservatives.” It shows you where their priorities are. Apparently those liberals view economic issues like campaign finance reform, Dodd-Frank and net neutrality as being more important than hundreds of thousands of unfairly imprisoned blacks and Hispanics, or minorities getting shut out of jobs by occupational […]
Posted in Flotsam and Jetsam on Jul 26th, 2015
Long-time reader (the only one perhaps!), commentator and friend, Harry Wood, passed away yesterday at his home in Quakertown, PA. The site with be much quieter without him. Harry was supremely well-read, worldly, patient and interesting – one of the those fellas they write books about, I’d do it if I had the talent. He […]
Posted in Flotsam and Jetsam on Jul 20th, 2015
Stiglitz on wealth, recessions and inequality. I don’t know why I continue to be frustrated by the ability to predict conclusions from the author and titles alone. Here is his, ” the adverse effects of austerity appear much greater than suggested by the standard national income accounts.” By the way, this may in fact be right, […]
Posted in Flotsam and Jetsam, media, Methodology on Jul 13th, 2015
1. The mortgage crisis seems to have been due to borrowers at ALL income levels expecting house prices to rise. Google the term “predatory borrowing” … not quite consistent with the prevailing narrative. 2. This paper may in fact be carefully done, but the result suggesting more government spending even when output multipliers are tiny […]
Posted in Flotsam and Jetsam on Jun 30th, 2015
To feel anger when looking at this: It’s an Adelie Penguin from Antarctica.
Posted in Flotsam and Jetsam, labor markets, Macroeconomics, Taxation on Jun 29th, 2015
This result was surprising, sure to get lots of news coverage: It shows that despite a rise in measured capital-labor ratios, labor-augmenting technical change in the US has been sufficiently rapid that effective capital-labor ratios have actually fallen in the sectors and industries that account for the largest portion of the declining labor share in income since 1980 Paper […]
Posted in Flotsam and Jetsam on Jun 15th, 2015
One for each side of the aisle today. Note that truths is not really the right word, these are small steps towards coming to truths. (1) For my friends on the Right: Welfare reform in the 1990s decreased incidence of single motherhood. (2) For my friends on the Left: The housing crisis was an issue of prime borrowers defaulting […]
Posted in Flotsam and Jetsam on May 27th, 2015
More from Last Call: Al Smith’s candidacy gave bigots and xenophobes a perfect demon. In 1928 the crude impulses that had earlier ignited the rapid growth of the Ku Klux Klan now exploded among those “Pure Americans” who saw themselves as losing their nation to the Irish and the Italians and all the other foreigners crowding […]
Posted in Flotsam and Jetsam on May 26th, 2015
Does this support the Higgs view of the Great Depression, and the modern view of stagnation? Or is it just an anomaly? Remember, beware any single study. But of course, a single study is something. Do ‘Cheeseburger Bills’ Work? Effects of Tort Reform for Fast Food After highly publicized lawsuits against McDonald’s in 2002, 26 […]
Posted in Flotsam and Jetsam on May 20th, 2015
No, not this one. I’ll be galavanting and posting only sparsely. I hope you keep me in your feed reader however, I’ll be back at some point. -Wintercow