J. Bradford DeLong's Blog, page 2260

Fiscal Policy: Chris Edley Is Making Sense--a Long-Term Deficit-Neutral State Aid During Recessions Proposal

I favor the Fed rather than the Treasury, and rather more oversight to qualify for the loans than Chris Edley's advances proposal--but Chris is making sense:

Chris Edley: [S:]everal states have country-sized G.D.P.’s, but none has the macroeconomic tools of an independent country. Every state except Vermont has some sort of balanced budget requirement that prevents it from weathering a recession by running up big deficits to keep teachers employed, students in college, welfare payments...

"Recovery Summer"

Q: Will President Barack Obama's "recovery summer" convince voters the $787 billion stimulus package is pulling the economy out of recession?

My Answer: The problem is that the stimulus package Obama proposed was about 2/3 the size that Obama's economic technocrats thought appropriate in December of 2008, that the marginal votes needed in Congress--Snowe, Nelson, et cetera--cut its effectiveness down to half and had the bargaining power to do so because every single other Republican...

Liveblogging World War II: July 8, 1940

Tea rationing begins in Britain:

Naval battle Punta Stilo, Calabria: Sea War Mediterranean: Destroyer Escort torpedoed by Italian submarine Guglielmo Marconi in Western Mediterranean (she founders while in tow). Sea War Atlantic: Two destroyers and two torpedo boats - bought by Sweden from Italy and detained by British forces in Faeroe Islands - are bombed in error by British aircraft (damaged ships reach Sweden July 10). Home Front Britain: 9 BEF divisions, rescued from Dunkirk, have...

Hoisted from the Archives: Fiscal Policy for the Second Half of 2009

June 6, 2009

Dear President Obama--

At the end of 2008, when your incoming administration was preparing your recession-fighting strategy, your forecasts were that the recession would bottom out in August of 2009, with a peak unemployment rate of 7.9%. The unemployment rate in May was already 9.4%. 10% unemployment this year is a nearly foregone conclusion. 11% unemployment--a recession twice as deep as the one your incoming administration was forecasting at the end of 2008--is not...

Business Cycle Watch: Why, This Is Hell, Nor Are We Out of It: Unemployment Rate Likely to Be Above 9% Through 2011

Greg Robb:

IMF says U.S. on mend but job rate to stay high - MarketWatch: The U.S. economic recovery is becoming increasingly well-established but the unemployment rate will stay above 9% through 2011, according to a report from the International Monetary Fund released Thursday.

The U.S. economy and financial system have made great strides in recovering from the Great Recession, but more work needs to be done, the IMF said. "The outlook has improved in tandem with the...

links for 2010-07-07

MenzieChinn: Still in Search of Inflationary Expectations







Felix Salmon: Income inequality chart of the day







British anger at terror celebration - Times Online







My Little Pony part three of three! Yay! « Illustrations and Crafts







Raj Chetty: Should Unemployment Benefits be Extended? An Economic Framework and Empirical...

Larry Meyer on the Chairman

Robin Harding:

Laws of the Fed: Larry Meyer, a Federal Reserve governor from 1996 to 2002 and now at Macroeconomic Advisers, recently put out a great report summing up who the doves and the hawks are on the Fed’s open market committee. One of the things that comes across is the informal rules that govern the committee’s voting behaviour (I’ve heard similar descriptions of these rules from other people as well). You might summarise them as:

The Board of Governors shall vote with...

These Are Not the Ones We Have Been Waiting for...

Ed Luce writes:

Politics & Foreign policy : Barack Obama on Wednesday set up a high-level panel of American chief executives in his effort to double US exports over the next five years, even as economists were sceptical of his chances of getting anywhere near that target. The move, which the US president said would help create higher-paying manufacturing jobs, comes amid mounting concern about the persistence of high unemployment in the build-up to November’s midterm elections......

Evolution in Action

Melanin, sickle-cell anemia resistance, lactose tolerance, and now blood chemistry and mountain sickness:

Scientists Cite Fastest Case of Human Evolution: Tibetans live at altitudes of 13,000 feet, breathing air that has 40 percent less oxygen than is available at sea level, yet suffer very little mountain sickness. The reason, according to a team of biologists in China, is human evolution.... Comparing the genomes of Tibetans and Han Chinese, the majority ethnic group in China, the...

Liveblogging World War II: July 7, 1940

Mers-El-Kebir affair, British naval forces attack Dakar 1940:

SUNDAY, JULY 7, 1940: Sea War Mediterranean: French naval squadron at Alexandria interned and demobilized by amicable agreement between British and French administrations (it includes old battleship Lorraine and four cruisers).... British naval forces disable battleship Richelieu at Dakar, following French rejection of ultimatum: motor launch drops depth charges under battleship's stern and six Swordfish aircraft from...