J. Bradford DeLong's Blog, page 2208

Fiscal Stimulus II

Josh Green today:

A Second Stimulus: It goes without saying--doesn't it?--that this morning's news that the White House will push a $200 billion plan for business tax cuts, coupled with its $50 billion proposal for research and development tax credits, $50 billion for infrastructure, and its $30 billion plan for small businesses, amounts to calling for a second stimulus... without, of course, using the dread term "stimulus."

Seems to me that this brings a few small advantages. It...

The Economic Situation

Karl Smith accurately describes the economic situation, in measured, appropriate langauge:

Rome is Burning «  Modeled Behavior: There is a critical point that I fear the commentariat is just not getting. In my darker moments I fear that some of my fellow economists aren’t getting it either but we aren’t going to go there.... We have very low capacity utilization (75%) and very high unemployment (10%). That is, we have factories sitting idle for lack of workers – low capacity utilization...

Keynesians, Monetarists, and Minskyites: Opening of September 13, 2010 U.C. Berkeley Econ 1 Lecture

Keynesians

Last time we ran through two types of recessions, “Keynesian” type and “monetarist” type—the one we saw in 2002 and the other we saw in 1982.

In a “Keynesian” downturn the fundamental financial excess demand in the economy is an excess demand for bonds: an excess of (planned) savings over business investment. Households try to shift their spending from purchasing current goods and services to purchasing bonds and other investment vehicles to carry purchasing power forward into...

Peter Orszag on Fiscal Policy

Peter Orszag writes for the New York Times. He goes off his Obama administration position, calling for only a two-year extension of the expiring Bush tax reductions, and for America to fight the recession now and fight the long-term deficit later.

I wish he had drawn a clearer distinction between what he regards as first-best policy--higher taxes on the rich, a VAT, lower income taxes on the middle and the working class--and what he regards as a politically attainable compromise. And I wish...

Eleanor Roosevelt Liveblogs World War II: September 7, 1940

Eleanor Roosevelt Roosevelt, My Day:

HYDE PARK, Friday—We had a picnic lunch yesterday for the second group of boys from the Woodstock, N. Y., National Youth Administration Project. These boys are learning quarrying, masonry work, stone carving and even the making of their own tools. I did not have a great deal to show them, but out on my porch, they looked with a great deal of interest at the big stone fireplace which I have for broiling.

After a swim and lunch and a visit to the...

links for 2010-09-06

Amazon.com: Risk and Liquidity (Clarendon Lectures in Finance) (9780199546367): Hyun Song Shin: Books







Dealbook Column - Politics and the Demise of Lehman Brothers - NYTimes.com







Daily Kos: State of the Nation

oktoberain: A National Disaster: Examining a Welfare System Broken by Reform: http://tinyurl.com/26hkp9v #worthreading





When It All Went...

The End of Summer...

Tomorrow's high is forecast to be 30F lower than today's high.

How Can Salt Be Not-Kosher?

That is all.

Livebloggins World War II: September 6, 1940

September 6, 1940:

World War II Day-By-Day: Day 372: British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, battleships HMS Barham and HMS Resolution and 10 escort destroyers depart Gibraltar bound for Freetown, Sierra Leone, for refueling. They will join cruisers HMS Devonshire and HMAS Australia to cover landings at Dakar by Free French troops under General De Gaulle (supported by 8,000 British troops).

Impediments to Rapid Recovery From Financial Crisis Are More Political Than Economic

Matthew Yglesias:

Matthew Yglesias » Impediments to Rapid Recovery From Financial Crisis Are More Political Than Economic: I wrote yesterday that I think the Reinhardt & Reinhardt finding that economies in the wake of a financial crisis typically experience years of slow growth is evidence that such crises are normally met with an inadequate policy response. The other read, the one that both Reinhardt’s and Carmen Reinhardt’s co-author Ken Rogoff seem to prefer, is that years of...