J. Bradford DeLong's Blog, page 2254

Can't Anybody Play This Game?

Shahiwn Nasiripour:

Tim Geithner Opposes Nominating Elizabeth Warren To Lead New Consumer Agency: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has expressed opposition to the possible nomination of Elizabeth Warren to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to a source with knowledge of Geithner's views. The financial reform bill passed by the Senate on Thursday mandates the creation of a new federal entity charged with protecting consumers from predatory lenders. But if Geithner...

DeLong Smackdown Watch: As I Sit Peacefully Poolside Among the Palm Trees of Ell-Ay...

Ken Houghton wants me to make contact with his alternate reality--the one with the Black president and the flying killer robots:

Waiting patiently for you to read Simon Johnson on Tim "I'm a politician, not a competent economist" Geithner...

Greenspan Calls for Letting All Bush Tax Cuts Permanently Expire...

Very nice to see. Now what other Republican economists will join him?

links for 2010-07-15

Mishel and Shierholz: Two for the Price of One







Mike Story: Economy suffers from a shortage of safe assets

Mike writes about Ricardo Caballero. Ricardo's theory is that the world economy suffers not from a structural global savings glut but from a structural global safe asset shortage.





Chris Nealy: The Large Scale Asset Purchases Had Large International Effects (pdf)





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DeLong Smackdown Watch: Andrew Harless

He believes that my current Regulationism masks a truly unrepentant Greenspanism at the core:

Andy Harless said...:

I sense a certain cognitive dissonance here. On the one hand, you acknowledge having recanted your Greenspanism. On the other hand, you ridicule the punchbowlists. Which are you?

For my part, I am an unrepentant Greenspanist. Ideally, I'm a modified Greenspanist with a higher inflation target and preferably with that target embodied in a price-level...

Eleanor Roosevelt Liveblogs World War II: July 15, 1940

Eleanor Roosevelt:

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, July 15, 1940: Yesterday I had a ride and swim in the morning, and Mrs. Florence Kerr, head of the Women's and Professional Projects in WPA, brought her regional area supervisors for a picnic lunch. We sat in the sun on the lawn and I heard reports of the work being carried on in different parts of the country. We discussed at some length the relationship of much of the training which is going on under WPA to the emergency situation...

No, the Reagan Tax Cuts Did Not Pay for Themselves...

Paul Krugman:

Carter, Reagan, Revenue: One common reaction of conservatives, when you point out that the experience of the last 20 years offers zero support for the idea that tax cuts pay for themselves, is to start shouting “Jimmy Carter! Reagan! Supply side roolz!” So I thought it might be worth presenting a bit of evidence from an earlier 20-year stretch. Here’s real federal revenue, in 2005 dollars, from 1970 to 1990. I’ve plotted the log.... [T:]he Carter years, contrary to legend...

Yes Our Press Corps Is a Joke. Why Do You Ask?

Somebody with a much stronger stomach than I have forwards a piece from the execrable Mike Allen, with the comment:

I'm not even an Obama fan but this sentence makes me want to stab myself in the EYES.

From: Mike Allen mallen@politico.com

Obama is perceived as failing to win over the public, even though by most conventional measures he is clearly succeeding.

Courtesy VandeHarris...

links for 2010-07-14

Simon Johnson: David Axelrod's Talking Points

SJ: "There was really no explanation for why the economy has become such a difficult place for so many people.... Blaming things on the Republicans in some vague sense (e.g., tax cuts) also doesn't make sense to people. If you want to get partisan, you have to connect the dots.... Does the problem here lie with the economic briefing that Axelrod received before going on air? If so, changing those responsible...

Dylan Matthew on the Congressional Deficit Turkey Vultures

Dylan:

What's the fiscal impact of estate tax cuts vs. unemployment insurance?: The unemployment extension proposal that Harry Reid is trying to pass has a one-time cost of $33 billion. That's for one year, and then the additional cost vs. the baseline is zero thereafter. So let's compare that temporary bump up in the deficit with four proposals (PDF) for reforming the estate tax. The first is outright repeal. The second, proposed by John McCain in the presidential election, would...