background preloader

Sites

Facebook Twitter

Inflation is a game of cat and mouse. I have been reading David Romer’s class notes called Short-run fluctuations. Part of his paper deals with a model to explain inflation in a liquidity trap. The model is based on real interest rates, output, expected inflation, Keynesian cross and IS-MP model stuff. He writes… “An economy where the nominal interest rate is zero poses severe challenges for policymakers. If output is less than its natural rate, inflation will tend to fall. With the nominal interest rate stuck at zero, this will raise the real interest rate, and so depress the output further. Policymakers therefore face the risk of the economy spiraling off on a path of continually falling inflation and output, like what we just analyzed.”

I don’t see output falling like he describes. and How does he determine output’s natural rate? Most have heard the standard definition of inflation… Too many dollars chasing too few goods. This definition comes specifically from demand-pull inflation, but is used for inflation in general.

Financial Capital II

Why Conservatives Like The Gold Standard. Nathan Tankus: Krugman von Hayek. By Nathan Tankus, a student and research assistant at the University of Ottawa. He is currently a Visiting Researcher at the Fields Institute. You can follow him on Twitter at @NathanTankus Mainstream economic discussions employ a false dichotomy. At one “extreme” you have Austrian economists who believe the current Federal Reserve policy is (or should be) causing inflation, malinvestment, and all sorts of other maladies. Let us begin with what they agree on: A central bank that sets a short term interest rate In contrast with monetarists of many stripes, both camps argue that the short term interest rate (the “Fed funds” rate in the United States) is set by the central bank (In the U.S., the Federal Reserve).

Money is an endogenous, not an exogenous variable It follows from the argument that central banks set a short term interest rate that they control the price of settlement balances (sometimes called “reserves” ) and not their quantity. Krugman on the other hand, is often less clear. San Diego News, Local, California and National News | UTSanDiego.com. The Progressive Radio Show. Latest US news, world news, sport and comment from the Guardian | guardiannews.com. The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia.

Bill Moyers Journal: Bill Moyers talks with Thomas Frank: Web Exclusive. But this was the subject of my 2000 book, ONE MARKET UNDER GOD, which discussed NAFTA and the Telecommunications Act at some length. THE WRECKING CREW is an effort to explain the particular species of corruption we see in Washington today. Clinton's contributions here were not insignificant, but they were more passive than active. His celebration of outsourcing set up the government-for-profit of the Bush era. His war on federal wages ensured that government would remain an unattractive career option, especially when compared to what's offered by the contractors who are our de facto government today. His failure even to try to reverse certain initiatives of the Reagan years allowed them to harden into permanent fixtures of the Washington scene. There are other forms of corruption that are particular to liberalism, and that occur more naturally among Democrats.

But by and large, the particular mode of corruption I describe in this book is a Republican invention. Yes. DeLay was right. No. Vanity Fair. Left Business Observer. Mother Jones | Smart, Fearless Journalism. Naked capitalism. WEB OF DEBT BLOG | ARTICLES IN THE NEWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . COMMENTS, FEEDBACK, IDEAS. Why Do Banks Get Away With Murder? For five long and very strange years, death haunted tiny Dryden, NY, a town near the Finger Lakes where a plague of car accidents, suicides, and even grisly murders involving two popular cheerleaders just kept mounting up.

At the end of Fargo, Frances McDormand’s police chief, Marge Gunderson, captures the psycho played by Peter Stormare. He’s in the backseat of her police cruiser and she talks to him as she drives. We see that she cannot fathom the evil she’s just seen. “And here ya are,” she says, “and it’s a beautiful day. Well, I just don’t understand it.”

It’s as true a piece of acting as you’ll find—Marge really doesn’t comprehend a certain kind of human darkness. I am not surprised by violence or horror but still sometimes find myself struck, not unlike Marge, in a kind of a daze, unable to wrap my head around it. Why do horrible things happen? In the meantime, dig into “The Cheerleaders.” The Cheerleaders by E. Welcome to Dryden. In the summer of ’96, many bonfires are built. Why Do Banks Get Away With Murder? Henry C.K.Liu Home. Henry C.K.Liu Home. Financial Sector Thinks It’s About Ready To Ruin World Again. NEW YORK—Claiming that enough time had surely passed since they last caused a global economic meltdown, top executives from the U.S. financial sector told reporters Monday that they are just about ready to completely destroy the world again.

Representatives from all major banking and investment institutions cited recent increases in consumer spending, rebounding home prices, and a stabilizing unemployment rate as confirmation that the time had once again come to inflict another round of catastrophic financial losses on individuals and businesses worldwide. “It’s been about five or six years since we last crippled every major market on the planet, so it seems like the time is right for us to get back out there and start ruining the lives of billions of people again,” said Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein. “People are beginning to feel at ease spending money and investing in their futures again,” Blankfein continued. Steve Keen's Debtwatch. I’ve attended two con­fer­ences in two days where both the power and the impo­tence of the Euro­pean Cen­tral Bank (EBC) have been on vivid display.

Its polit­i­cal power is con­sid­er­able, both in form and in sub­stance. At both sem­i­nars, the ECB speaker—ECB Board mem­ber Peter Praet at the first, and ECB Pres­i­dent Mario Draghi at the second—spoke first, and then left. In form, the ECB has no need to defend its poli­cies because it is unim­peach­able in its exe­cu­tion of them.

In sub­stance, it does not even con­sid­er­ing engag­ing with its subjects—I use the word deliberately—in open and robust discussion. The posi­tion of the econ­omy in the envi­ron­ment is a shared blindspot in eco­nom­ics: no exist­ing school han­dles the topic well, and yet this is the key issue we need to under­stand. Click here for the Pow­er­point slides. Per­ma­nent link to this post (73 words, esti­mated 18 secs read­ing time) Click here to down­load the Pow­er­point slides. What is Behind the Inflation Numbers? Susan George (political scientist) Susan George (born June 29, 1934) is a well-known Franco-American political and social scientist, activist and writer on global social justice, Third World poverty, underdevelopment and debt.

She is a fellow and president of the board of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. She is a fierce critic of the present policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank (IBRD) and what she calls their 'maldevelopment model'. She similarly criticizes the structural reform policies of the Washington Consensus on Third World development. She is of U.S. birth but now resides in France, and has dual citizenship since 1994.

After attending a public, co-educational primary school, she went on to enroll at all-girls private preparatory academy. She stated that single-sex schooling "made me not a feminist. It was normal that women do whatever anybody did. As a young student, George was a voracious reader and always ranked first in her class. French/Government [B.A. Calculated Risk. Rolling Stone | Music News, Politics, Reviews, Photos, Videos, Interviews and More. The Physics of Finance. Politics, Business, Technology, and the Arts - Slate Magazine. PERI: Home. CEPR. Bloomberg - Business, Financial & Economic News, Stock Quotes.

Los Angeles Times - California, national and world news - latimes.com. With New Internet and Cell Phone Rules, Federal Communications Commission Approves Mass Sell-off of Public Airwaves. This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. AMY GOODMAN: As we talk about media consolidation, I wanted to go to a new issue. As Rupert Murdoch’s purchase of Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal dominated headlines this week, another media story of great significance has been overshadowed: The Federal Communications Commission has approved a set of rules to auction off a sizable chunk of the public airwaves.

These rules will guide how the FCC sells licenses to use the public airwaves for wireless phones and Internet access. This story might not have made the front page of your local newspaper, but the FCC’s actions will likely affect the lives of everyone in this country that uses the Internet and mobile phones. To explain what the FCC is doing, Craig Aaron is still with us in Chicago, communications director of Free Press.

We’re going to start with Craig Aaron. AMY GOODMAN: Wally Bowen, can you explain the practical application of this in the kind of work that you do? Ryan Powers. Ryan Powers Posts by Ryan Powers Politics Dr. King’s SCLC moves to oust L.A. chapter president over his support for gay rights. By Ryan Powers on July 10, 2009 0 Tweets 0 Shares Jeb Bush: ‘I don’t know’ if Obama is a socialist. By Ryan Powers on July 9, 2009 Security Torture By Mexican Government In Drug War Highlights U.S. Recent Tweets Tweets by @thinkprogress Lawless Nevada Rancher Is Actually Getting An Amazing Deal From The Federal Government New York Times’ David Brooks Says Obama Has ‘A Manhood Problem In The Middle East’ Oklahoma Will Charge Customers Who Install Their Own Solar Panels Get ThinkProgress Alerts in Your Inbox: Want daily updates on important issues?

Issa removes partisan video from Republican Oversight Committee YouTube channel. By Ryan Powers on July 8, 2009 Rep. Reid to Baucus: Stop chasing Republican support for health care reform. By Ryan Powers on July 7, 2009 Kyl: Obama Wants To ‘Make A Deal’ With Russia More Than He Wants To ‘Ensure The Protection’ Of The U.S. Sen. Most Shared. Hard Times for Student Borrowers. Kelly Lynch, a former Columbia College Chicago film and video major, is paying educational loan lender Sallie Mae $600 a month, about 1 percent of his total student loan debt of $60,000. Though Lynch, 21, never received his degree from Columbia and barely survives with freelance film and video work, he considers himself lucky. Lynch consolidated his loans through Sallie Mae a few months before the nation’s largest student loan lender suspended its student loan consolidation program in April. The policy shift left many other young borrowers with inflated interest rates. “To leave college and enter the real world with such grave debt is a setup for failure,” says Lynch.

Sallie Mae’s decision came in the midst of what many in the student loan industry call a crisis. In May, the Wall Street Journal reported that the private student loan market grew by as much as 25 percent a year for a decade. And the government knows it. Lynch and Novak are not alone. Shadow Government Statistics - Home Page. The Money Party (5): "Us versus Them" M. Collins: The Money Party (5) Michael Collins"Scoop" Independent NewsWashington, D.C. We have been warned again and again that seeing the world as an "us versus them" proposition is a fatal error. It's polarizing. It leads to "class warfare. " It absolves "us" of the collective responsibility we all have in a democracy.

Can't have it, not allowed. Well, here's some news for "them". This point is critical: If "we" all allowed it to happen then "they" aren't responsible, ever. Now the "D" word is being used – we're on the verge of a major depression or, at least, a calamitous recession, take your pick. In 2001 the loser won. Then the looting began with a stunningly consistent display of greed and avarice bringing us to these perilous times. So gear up, get in shape, and be ready to hear that we are to blame for this worst of all possible worlds created by The Money Party and its minions. Those of "us" who supported this war did so based on wildly misleading information. . © Scoop Media. Last Letters Home. How the GOP Will Benefit From Impending Economic Collapse.

Republicans benefit from the fact that recessions are class conscious, affecting worse those who can least afford them. An era of highly leveraged US economic expansion and empire is about to come crashing down and swept away. Count on the GOP to make out like bandits. It seems like ages ago, the US was at peace, there was a budget surplus, the economy was growing, and the unemployment rate was very low.

But not everyone was happy. There was an entire group of people who harbor not good, but ill will; an entire class wished for bad times and got it. Until now, China had an interest in keeping the US ponzi scheme propped up --they sold billions to US citizens via Wal-Mart, the economic Kudzu that ate America. Chentleman, [sic ] you are vorried about the depression. A pattern emerged with the ascension of Ronald Reagan: the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer.

Bush, meanwhile, seems unconcerned, perhaps, like Nero, fiddling as Rome burns. "Are there no workhouses? How the GOP Will Benefit From Impending Economic Collapse.