J. Bradford DeLong's Blog, page 2249

Why Isn't the Federal Reserve Boosting Aggregate Demand Further?

Joe Gagnon:

Joseph E. Gagnon: Time for a Monetary Boost: In his testimony to the Congress this week, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke left the door open to further monetary stimulus but made it clear that such action is not imminent. This reluctance to act may seem puzzling given the widespread view that the economic recovery is too weak.... The Federal Reserve's own forecast shows that it will take at least three or four years for employment to return to its long-run sustainable level. This...

Our Jobless Recovery Continues

Greg Robb of Marketwatch:

The number of people applying for initial state unemployment insurance benefits rose 37,000 to 464,000 in the week ended July 17, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had expected an initial claims level of 450,000.

Liveblogging World War II: July 22, 1940

The story of Jan Zwartendijk:

Lithuania Honours a Holocaust Rescuer: What was the role of Jan Zwartendijk (1896-1976) in the Kovno rescue episode? Why has Lithuania now recognized him for courage fifty-nine years after the event?... The Polish Jews who had fled to Lithuania precisely to escape Soviet rule felt especially vulnerable and desperate during the annexation process. By July virtually all consulates in Kovno, the Lithuanian capital, were in the process of closing. Panic set...

links for 2010-07-21

Carl Hulse: Senate Gives Final Approval to Jobless Benefits

From $300 billion down to $34 billion. But $34 billion > $0. Kudos to the Obama Economic Team





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David Frum: Shirley Sherrod and the shame of...

Listserves in the Age of Google Archives

James Fallows:

On Today's Hot Media Stories: Virtues: at its best, it was a way of getting informed comment from people you wouldn't otherwise be in touch with. For me, this meant hearing from people: with experience in Afghanistan or Iraq; with expertise on financial regulation; with sharply diverging views about the importance of controlling the federal deficit; with informed views about what it would take to implement the new health care bill; with experience in reporting about...

Their Names Are Written in the Book of Life...

Carl Hulse:

Senate Gives Final Approval to Jobless Benefits: The Senate gave final approval Wednesday evening to legislation providing added unemployment benefits through November to millions of Americans who have been out of work for six months or more, ending a politically charged fight.

From $300 billion down to $34 billion. But $34 billion > $0.

Kudos to the Obama Economic Team, and to Pelosi, Reid, and company...

No kudos to Carl "He Said, She Said" Hulse, however...

Effects of Extending the Under $250,000 Income Portion of the Bush Tax Cuts...

...would produce a fifty-year hit to the primary deficit of $4,000,000,000,000--although the number is ambiguous because the interactions with other tax provisions, especially the AMT, is so large.

Just as it was a catastrophic mistake to pass the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 without triggers to reverse them if the structural deficit became a problem, so it would be a catastrophic mistake to permanently extend any portion of the Bush tax cuts without triggers to reverse the extensions...

Federal Debt and U.S. Growth: I Think the Intelligent Simon van Norden Is Slightly Off...

Simon writes:

Worthwhile Canadian Initiative: Ninety percent worries: With this and other data, Rogoff and Reinhart document that, historically, there is not much of a relationship between government indebtedness and growth except for the over 90% of GDP group. For debt loads up there, growth seems quite a bit lower...

The problem is that the United States debt-to-GDP ratio got above 90% once and only once--at the end of World War II.

And then World War II ended, and we...

David Leonhardt on the Disfunctional U.S. Government and the Global Climate

David:

Economic Scene - Overcome by Heat and Inertia: This city just endured its hottest June since records began in 1872, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. So did Miami. Atlanta suffered its second-hottest June, and Dallas had its third hottest. In New York, the weather was relatively pleasant: only the fourth-hottest June since 1872. Then again, New York is on pace for its hottest July on record. Yet when United States senators and their aides file...

Kudos to National Review Online

Daniel Foster emails:

Here's me saying NRO should get some credit for circling the wagons around Shirley Sherrod after watching the full, unedited tape. Is it convenient that Sherrod's forced resignation makes the White House, or at least Vilsack, look bad? Sure. But there is a lot of genuine feeling for Sherrod, and not a little regret over having overreacted to the initial story.

Here's Spruiell