J. Bradford DeLong's Blog, page 2194

Health Reform Benefits That Start Tody

John Larson:

10 Major New Health Reform Benefits Take Effect Today:

Starting today, insurers will be required to:

Keep you covered when you get sick: Simple mistakes or typos will no longer be grounds for insurance companies to cancel your insurance.

Cover kids with pre-existing conditions....

Allow young adults to stay on their parents' plan up to age 26....

Remove lifetime [coverage:] limits....

Phase out annual [coverage:] limits....

...

The Way Out of the Slump

Paul Krugman and Robin Wells:

The Way Out of the Slump: Most of the time, we count on central banks to engineer economic recovery following a slump... cut the short-term interest rates it controls; market-determined longer-term rates fall in sympathy; and the private sector responds by borrowing and spending more.

The sheer severity of the slump after the 2008 housing bust means, however, that this normal response falls far short of what’s needed.... [C:]onventional monetary policy...

The Obama Administration Goes Off-Message Again...

As one sub-cabinet Obama staffer once said: "I went to Washington fearful that I would have to try to stop the president's media people from trying to enact policies that were bad for the country's economy but good for Democrats in the the midterm election. I never expected to have to try to stop the likes of David Axelrod from trying to enact policies--like a premature pivot to deficit reduction before the recovery was well-established--that were both bad for the country's economy and bad...

Writing for National Review Has Rotted Avik Roy's Brain

Does he have no true friends? I think an intervention is called for. If we can get him out of the toxic intellectual environment of that culture of ignorance, perhaps he can still be saved...

Avik Roy:

The Pledge to America on Health Care: [T:]he Pledge says almost nothing about the biggest and most difficult questions in health policy: Medicare and Medicaid reform. It criticizes PPACA’s “massive Medicare cuts” without offering an alternative solution... promises that Republicans “will...

William Galston Says Obama Must Pivot Toward Hooverism

It is remarkable:

William Galston: Obama must use Summers’ exit to chart new course: With the impending departure of his chief economic policy advisor Lawrence Summers, and all-but-certain departure of his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, President Barack Obama faces personnel choices that will reshape his administration over the next two years.... [B:]oth the president’s economic and political strategy have hit a wall. His economic policies prevented a complete collapse but have not sparked...

Forecasting Track Records

Paul Krugman:

Who You Gonna Believe?: I went through my mail today, and got the usual batch of letters declaring that I’m wrong about everything, and that we should do the opposite of anything I say. Hey, it’s a free country. But I found myself wondering, as I often do, about the determination with which people believe pundits who please them ideologically, no matter how wrong they have repeatedly been — wrong in ways that, if you believed them, cost you money.

Suppose you had spent...

Ryan Avent Is Overly Harsh...

He writes:

Free exchange: MY CRUSADE for a more sophisticated discussion about the American labour market seems to be falling short of its goals. Lawrence Mishel released a note yesterday entitled, "Debunking the theory of structural unemployment", which concluded:

Widespread claims that our unemployment crisis is structural are not only inaccurate, but they imply that macroeconomic tools such as fiscal policy (spending or tax cuts) or monetary policy can not address our...

There Is No Excuse for Anybody Who Cares Even a Smidgeon About Good Policies to Support the Republicans This Fall. None.

Ezra Klein:

Ezra Klein - The GOP's bad idea: "America is more than a country," begins the GOP's 'Pledge to America.' America, it turns out, is an "idea," an "inspiration," and a "belief." And the GOP wants to govern it. Their policy agenda is detailed and specific... a set of hard promises that will increase the deficit by trillions of dollars, take health-care insurance away from tens of millions of people, create a level of policy uncertainty businesses have never previously known...

links for 2010-09-22

Jacques Distler: Going Galt







Due for iPhone: to-do, task, reminders management app







About The Yen - NYTimes.com

Paul Krugman: About the Yen: http://tinyurl.com/24vlf2j #worthreading

Liveblogging World War II: September 23, 1940

Time Magazine Liveblogs Wendell Willkie's presidential campaign:

REPUBLICANS: While London Burned: Last week Wendell Willkie went forth as an evangelist. For weeks he had smoldered in Rushville, Ind., reading reports that his campaign had stalled. The only answer he got to his daily denunciation of Franklin Roosevelt was an aloof and lofty silence. Mr. Willkie wanted to fight; Mr. Roosevelt made it plain that he was too busy to campaign. Angry, steam up, Mr. Willkie finally climbed...