J. Bradford DeLong's Blog, page 2216

links for 2010-08-30

The Irish Model... - Grasping Reality with Both Hands

@delong You have a dropped blockquote in the Whelan post... http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/08...

– Mark Thoma (MarkThoma) http://twitter.com/MarkThoma/statuses...

(tags: from:MarkThoma)



Government Regulation and the Financial Crisis « Rortybomb

Mike Konczal: Government Regulation and the Financial...

Hoisted from the Archives: Keynes on Trotsky

From http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/comments/keynes01.htm:

Notes: Keynes on Trotsky: : Review of Trotsky On England (Where is Britain Going?), by John Maynard Keynes. From John Maynard Keynes (1933), Essays in Biography (London: Harcourt, Brace).

A CONTEMPORARY reviewing this book says: "He stammers out platitudes in the voice of a phonograph with a scratched record." I should guess that Trotsky dictated it. In its English dress it emerges in a turbid...

The Irish Model...

Karl Whelan:

The Enduring Influence of Ireland’s 1987 Adjustment: When I was a junior economist in short trousers, the first research I ever did was inspired by Ireland’s successful 1987-89 fiscal adjustment.  Many international researchers looked at Ireland and decided that our successful adjustment stemmed from consumers stepping into the breach filled by the government spending cuts. The story was that increased consumer confidence, fueled by expectations of lower future taxes, was...

What Is Bernanke Saying?

Matthew Yglesias's take::

Remainders: Bernanke’s Speech: Remainders: Taken literally, I don’t think Ben Bernanke’s speech last week made any sense at all. He described a hypothetical future situation in which the inflation rate gets lower and employment growth continues to be unsatisfactory. He said that in such a situation the Federal Reserve would attempt to increase aggregate demand and that he believed it would be successful in doing so. So far so good. He also said that currently...

The State of the European Economy

Paul Krugman:

Munchau On Germany: Munchau On Germany
Wolfgang Munchau has some not-so-nice things to say about the German economic situation. He notes that so far, at least, Germany’s growth simply reflects recovery from an unusually deep slump: “So far, this looks like classic dead-cat bounce.” He also stresses the role of German undervaluation; this is a big problem, and I agree that it’s at the heart of the eurozone’s troubles.

Also today: Clive Crook says sensible things...

UC Berkeley Webcasts: Economics 1, Fall 2010

Three audio files of the first Econ 1 lecture: Lecture 1, August 30: Introduction to Macroeconomics.

One at:

Economics 1, 001:

The others at:

Download 20100830 Econ 1 LS | Download 20100830 Econ 1 SP

Comments on audio quality?

Robert Gibbs Should Not Go Off-Message

A spokesman who cannot stay on message is no good at all.

The message wasn't "nobodycoudanoed we needed a bigger stimulus": it was (a) Congress would not go for a bigger stimulus, and (b) the federal government's capacity to ramp up its spending was limited, so (c) fiscal stimulus functioned as an insurance policy, and (d) the Fed and the Treasury could also swing into action to stimulate the economy.

That Gibbs is now saying "nobodycoudanoed" is off message, and profoundly unhelpful.

...

Paper.li

The DeLong Daily:

Econ 1: Ungiven NIPA Lecture (Fall 2010)

A lecture I simply won't have time to give: the topic will have to be covered in section...

Open publication - Free publishing - More nipa

20100830 for Econ 1 lecture 1a.pdf

Bring Your Genes to Your Life Insurance Sales Representative

Bring Your Genes to Your Life Insurance Sales Representative « The Berkeley Blog: Put me down as one of those who was puzzled when Dean Mark Schissel said on “All Things Considered,” of the three genes to be tested in “bring your genes to Cal”:

[W:]e purposefully chose three genes that are not disease associated…

People who are lactose-intolerant are more likely to develop hip fractures late in life–especially if they do not regularly take their calcium supplements. People with a low...