J. Bradford DeLong's Blog, page 2234

Liveblogging World War II: August 10, 1940

Winston S. Churchill:

Dill, with Eden's ardent approval, wrote me that the War Office were arranging to send immediately to Egypt one cruiser tank battalion of fifty-two tanks, one light tank regiment (fifty-two tanks), and one Infantry tank battalion of fifty tanks... These would start as soon as they could be loaded. The only question open was whether they should go round the Cape or take a chance through the Mediterranean.... The decision to give this blood-transfusion [to the...

Robert Gibbs Digs Himself in Deeper

Mike Memoli:

Gibbs lashes out at 'professional left', apologizes: The Swamp: Gibbs has since released a statement apologizing for his remarks, saying....

I watch too much cable. Day after day it gets frustrating. Yesterday I watched as someone called legislation to prevent teacher layoffs a bailout -- but I know that's not a view held by many, nor were the views I was frustrated about. So what I may have said inartfully, let me say this way -- since coming to office in...

Can't Anybody Play This Game?

It sure looks to me like Barack Obama really needs a new and very different press secretary--one who can stay on message...

What Robert Gibbs should think, and should say:

We hear the frustration. We understand it. We are frustrated too. Large pieces of our agenda have been completely stalled by procedural obstacles in the legislature. Large pieces have been enacted in imperfect form. We agree: the glass is not full. The economy, while improving, is still in bad shape. Global warming is...

links for 2010-08-09

Heijman and Ophem: Willingness to pay tax The Laffer curve revisited for 12 OECD countries







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Where Is the Peak of the Laffer Curve?

If the peak of the long-run Laffer curve happened to be at a top rate of 40%--and thus an average tax rate of 25%--the graph to the right, plotting average tax rates against revenues for the OECD countries, would show a peak at an x-axis value of 25%. It doesn't. If you squint you can convince yourself that there is some curvature to the graph, but the squinting has to be really, really hard. If revenues actually dropped off when top rates went above 40%--or 15%, or 19%, or 33%, or even...

Tom Maguire: Joint DeLong/Krugman Smackdown Watch

Tom Maguire wrote:

I am intrigued by the Flatland versus the Zoned Zone analysis Prof. Krugman delivered in 200? and reprised in a recnrt "Georgia On My Mind" column....

When it comes to housing, however, the United States is really two countries, Flatland and the Zoned Zone. In Flatland, which occupies the middle of the country, it's easy to build houses. When the demand for houses rises, Flatland metropolitan areas, which don't really have traditional downtowns, just...

Uncertainty...

In 2001 and 2003 George W. Bush and his Republicans created an enormous amount of uncertainty for American businesses. They deliberately unbalanced the federal budget for the long term, enacting tax cuts and spending increases, leaving businesses uncertain of who or what would be taxed in the future in order to restore eventual budgetary balance--and uncertain of whether the ultimate balancer might be another prolonged outburst of high inflation.

In 1994 the Republican Party, united...

Wall Street Journal FAIL

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

Outsourced to Kevin Drum::

Plenty of Jobs, Not Enough Workers?: The Wall Street Journal reports that even with unemployment at 9.5%, employers are having trouble finding workers.... "Mechanical Devices can't find the workers it needs to handle a sharp jump in business. Job fairs run by airline Emirates attract fewer applicants in the U.S. than in other countries. Truck-stop operator Pilot Flying J says job postings don't elicit many...

The Pro-Stimulus Manifesto...

Stimulus Now: A Manifesto by Harry Evans, Joseph Stiglitz, Alan Blinder, Other Leaders - The Daily Beast: Fourteen million unemployed represents a gigantic waste of human capital, an irrecoverable loss of wealth and spending power, and an affront to the ideals of America. Some 6.8 million have been out of work for 27 weeks or more. Members of Congress went home to celebrate July 4 having failed to extend unemployment benefits.

We recognize the necessity of a program to cut the mid...

Fiscal Policy: If You Want to Play the Hand, You Have to Ante Up...

Glenn Hubbard, writing in the Wall Street Journal, wants "President Obama [to:]... commit to retaining the low tax rates Congress passed in 2003."

Seems to me that he wants to play his hand without anteing up any of his chips.

Thus for me the dominant consideration is that this is the Wall Street Journal trying, once again, to weaken and impoverish America by raising the long-term debt and its burden on the economy. If there were PAYGO-style offsets on offer to fund the extension of the...