J. Bradford DeLong's Blog, page 2207

Ryan Avent Accurately Characterizes the New York Times's Economix Column

Ryan Avent:

Fiscal policy: So crowded, no one's working anymore: For now, paying attention to Mr Mulligan is an utter waste of time...

Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?

This has gone on long enough. Catherine Rampall, Steve Greenhouse, David Leonhardt, Uwe Reinhardt, Ed Glaeser, Nancy Folbre, Sewell Chan--please get out: you need to get a better address.

The Fall Campaign Begins...

Marc Ambinder:

Obama Writes His Thesis Statement: The president is for a set of tax cuts for businesses and spending that would step up the pace of the economic recovery. In doing so, he's given Democrats something to run on. As much as the  party wants to localize races, they're still Democrats, and President Obama is still their leader.  Now, he's given them some bread. The Republicans want to freeze all spending and tax cuts. The Democrats want to cut these taxes and spend more. John...

The Ones Who Don't Walk Away from Omelas...

Ross Douthat says that in order to achieve a good society we must, we are required to periodically put Andrew Sullivan in the stocks and throw rotten garbage at him because of who he is.

I'm not sure I would call Ross Douthat's position a "morality." A mental "disorder" or "disease" seems to better describe it.

Obamanomics Is Recast as 'Recovery Summer' Fades - WSJ.com

David Wessel writes about Barack Obama's economic plans.

As I understood--or imagined I understood--things at the start of 2009, the Obama administration was going to do five things:

Pass the biggest piece of expansionary fiscal policy it could do quickly--a pseudo-Republican one with a lot of (likely to be relatively ineffective) tax cuts in order to freeze delay and opposition.
Conduct stress tests on the banks--and then either trumpet the results if it looked like they were healthy or...

Circumnavigate the North Pole!

NSIDC:

Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis: The Northwest Passage and the Northern Sea Route are largely free of ice, allowing the potential for a circumnavigation of the Arctic Ocean. At least two expeditions are attempting this feat, the Norwegian explorer Borge Ousland and the Peter I yacht from Russia.

Moral Philosophy: Chris Bertram Makes an Elementary Mistake

Bertram:

Getting the microfoundations right: I ordered a copy of Tomasello’s Why We Cooperate in which he argues, on the basis of detailed empirical work with young children and other primates, that humans are hard-wired with certain pro-social dispositions to inform, help, share etc and to engage in norm-guided behaviour of various kinds.... [T:]hat work in empirical psychology and evolutionary anthropolgy (and related fields) doesn’t – quelle surprise! – support anything like the...

Holtz-Eakin: GOP Too Focused On 'Cocaine' Of Sarah Palin To Rule

Brian Buetler:

Holtz-Eakin: GOP Too Focused On 'Cocaine' Of Sarah Palin To Rule:

Wow.

Then, Doug, please don't vote for them.

BP Investigation Released: The Oil Spill Was Everybody's Fault

Five faillures one after the other.

Rachel Slajda:

BP Investigation Released: The Oil Spill Was Everybody's Fault | TPMMuckraker: BP today released the report of its own investigation into what caused the Deepwater Horizon to explode and leak millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. We're still digging through the 193-page report, which you can find here, along with the appendices and executive summary. But according to BP's quick-summary press release, the company found...

links for 2010-09-07

The Slump Goes On: Why? | The New York Review of Books

Paul Krugman and Robin Wells: The Slump Goes on: Why?: http://tinyurl.com/26ax2dd #worthreading





H-1B Visa Cap for 2011 Has Not Been Met Yet - IT Management from eWeek

Don Sears: H-1B Visa Cap for 2011 Has Not Been Met Yet: http://tinyurl.com/23b9ogd #worthreading





Trying To Have It Both Ways On What The Bond Market...

The Fall Campaign Begins...

Frank Newport

Parties Tied at 46% in Generic Ballot: PRINCETON, NJ -- Republicans and Democrats are tied at 46% among registered voters in Gallup's weekly tracking of congressional voting preferences...