Spain's Current Account Deficit Folds In On Itself
Review: Asus U80V
Attorney Did Not Violate Sex With Client Rule: Never Met Client
Scine Accounting LLC Engages $48,000 Client from GoodAccountants.com
The ESRI’s Quarterly Economic Commentary
On Trade and Living Standards
German Magazine: Silver as Legal Way to Repatriate 6-Digit Funds from Austria Back Home
[news] Venezuela-Colombia Dispute Reaches WTO, Border Closed After 2 Venezuelan Troops Shot Dead
Get a Jump Start on 2010 at Orange County's Networking Event of the Year!
links for 2009-06-19
Olivier Blanchard: What is needed for a lasting recovery Gillian Tett: Insight: When it comes to global banks, size matters Christina Romer Is Making Sense – The Stash Michael Berube: You start a conversation, you can’t even finish it Michael Crittendon: Sen Dodd Blasts Financial Firms For Opposing Consumer Help Conor Clarke: An Interview With Paul Samuelson, Part Two David Frum: The urgent case to reform conservatism Romer: The lessons of 1937 Romer Roundtable Stephen Kinsella: at the New School in New York, you’d want to bring a sword, bandages, and some vodka to any presentation given by an external speaker…
This is the first same month year-over-year increase in miles driven (April 2009 compared to the April 2008) since November 2007. Of course gasoline prices have increased sharply since April. The EIA reports that gasoline prices have increased from about $2.10 per gallon in April, to $2.70 per gallon in June – and that will probably impact miles driven.
Susie Madrak: Obama to Strip Fed of Power to Regulate Mortgages, Credit Cards | Crooks and Liars Bright Rights: Reminder when reviewing Obama’s financial reform plan Nina Hachigian: Bailing Out the Bailer-Outer: Five Reasons Congress Should Agree to Fund the IMF Conor Clarke: An Interview With Paul Samuelson, Part One Trevor Giffrey: Pat Buchanan: For Affirmative Action Before He Was Against It Bruce Bartlett: The Achilles’ heel of health care reform Jon Cohn: Deep Brain Stimulation… isn’t exactly an American innovation. If anybody deserves credit for developing it, it’s the French–and one French doctor in particular…
From DataQuick: Southland median sale price inches up for first time since ‘07 Southern California home sales rose for the 11th consecutive month in May as sales of $500,000-plus homes started to come back. The median price paid increased slightly from the prior month for the first time since July 2007, the result of a shift in market activity where sales of deeply discounted foreclosures waned and mid- to high-end purchases rose , a real estate information service reported. emphasis added Yesterday I noted that Cramer was fooled by the rise in median prices (as reported by NAR)
Owners’ equivalent rent (OER) is a major component of CPI (23.8% of CPI, see Cleveland Fed ), and even though rents are falling in most areas, OER is still increasing (up 2.1% Year-over-year and up 1.8% annualized in May). For a discussion from the BLS of rent measures see: How the CPI measures price change of Owners’ equivalent rent of primary residence (OER) and Rent of primary residence (Rent) The expenditure weight in the CPI market basket for Owners’ equivalent rent of primary residence (OER) is based on the following question that the Consumer Expenditure Survey asks of consumers who own their primary residence: “If someone were to rent your home today, how much do you think it would rent for monthly, unfurnished and without utilities?” So far owners believe that rents are still increasing.
We Are Live at The Week with: A Wall Street Fairy Tale
A Wall Street Fairy Tale – THE WEEK : The story we tell ourselves about what happened to the financial markets last fall is vitally important. It will determine what form financial market regulation takes in the next few decades, and how vulnerable we will be to the next disruption. At this moment, a relatively calm one, a fictional version of last fall’s events is gaining traction
Facing a historic national debt that President Obama correctly characterized as “unsustainable,” yet still desiring to implement some sort of national health-care package, US policymakers, notably Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, have recently hinted at the possibility of a national sales tax. More specifically, they hint at possible implementation of a national value-added tax (VAT) which would tax at a certain rate the difference between the cost of inputs and the price of the output along each individual step of production.
“To fight this recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, as Paul McCulley of Pimco put it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble.” — Paul Krugman in 2002 I think of Paul Krugman as the great Naked Emperor of the economics profession, and when I listen to the good professor as I did today to his Robbins Lectures , I can’t avoid picturing the man naked and alone stammer out the words I’m hearing in his nervous “crazy man” voice.
The Future Is Here, It Is Just Not Easily Distributed (Iran Edition)
Author Walter Jon Williams says that he has an unimportant problem toay: Angel Station: Watching My Uncompleted Novel Go Down in Flames : There is a scene just like this in the novel I’m working on. My whole novel is playing itself out before my very eyes. All its specialness and wonderfulness, coolness and invention is curling up and dying in fire, as if one of the incendiaries from Fahrenheit 451 found it before I could even finish it
The Washington Post Might Be Turning into… Half a Newspaper
Jon Cohen and Jennifer Agiesta of the Washington Post news staff hoist the jolly roger and fire back at the mendacious and incompetent Washington Post editorial page: About Those Iran Polls – Behind the Numbers : Public opinion surveys are central to the Iranian opposition’s argument that the elections there were rigged for incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad…. Now a competing poll conducted by two American groups is being used as part of the pushback. In an op-ed in today’s Washington Post, Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty write up the results of their telephone poll carried out in mid-May, showing Ahmadinejad ahead “by a more than 2 to 1 margin – greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday’s election.”…
Sheldon Richman notes in IP Debate Breaks Out at FEE that “At a recent FEE seminar, a debate over intellectual ‘property’ broke out spontaneously among Ivan Pongracic (second from right), Paul Cwik (second from left), and me (left, where I belong). Who won?” There is no doubt that in just 10 short minutes Richman completely dominates with his clear and concise thinking on this issue (as he did in Sheldon Richman on Intellectual Property versus Liberty ). Pongracic and Cwik just re-hash the standard arguments, which are full of holes (as Cwik did in his presentation at the 2008 Austrian Scholars Conference , on the IP panel on which I was a discussant; Cwik’s argument was incredibly weak (as several audience members noted to me), as the IP argument has to be).
Three adult turkeys and twenty-one poults make their way up the hillside at dawn… I am told that the California wild turkey was hunted to extinction in the 1920s–”Ma! Get a net!” These are Texas wild turkeys, and are animals that are neither “native” nor “non-native” but rather “near native.” I think that their edge over other ground-birds in American suburbia is that they do not fear cats much…
The Canadian state has, once again, resorted to murdering its own citizens to protect its vaunted monopoly over health care services and pharmaceuticals: Cancer patients desperate enough to order cheaper, unlicensed versions of the drug thalidomide from Mexico now face another challenge to getting treatment: Federal authorities have reportedly begun seizing supplies of the life-extending medicine at the border. “Health Canada is stopping every single box of thalidomide,” said an official with a Mexican company that makes the pills, who asked not to be named
For Mises’s friends of his later years, after his marriage and the success of his American activity had softened him, the sharp outbursts in the following memoirs, written at the time of his greatest bitterness and hopelessness, might come as a shock. But the Mises who speaks from the following pages is without question the Mises we knew from the Vienna of the twenties; of course without the tactful reservation that he invariably displayed in oral expression; but the honest and open expression of what he felt and thought
Charles Platt, author and journalist, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts what it was like to apply for a job at Wal-Mart, get one, and work there. He discusses the hiring process, the training process, and the degree of autonomy Wal-Mart employees have to change prices. The conversation concludes with a discussion of attitudes toward Wal-Mart.
When Deterrence Fails! "Wuthering Heights" Version
Rohan Maitzen writes: Musical Versions : I was recently reminded of the Kate Bush song “Wuthering Heights.” I’ve learned, through the very scientific methods of chatting with friends and reading responses to posted videos on Facebook, that the song is haunting to some, unpleasantly whiny to others, and just plain weird to still others (actually, I expect all Kate Bush songs evoke at least this wide a range of responses). As it happens, I like “Wuthering Heights”…
Here is an interesting short discussion on reusing mall space from Rob Walker in the NY Times Magazine: Repurpose-Driven Life Talk of American infrastructure tends to focus on inadequacies: roads that need to be repaired or widened, bridges fortified, electrical grids updated. All the more striking, then, that America’s retail infrastructure — its malls, supercenters, big boxes and other styles of store-clumping — has come to be characterized by rampant abundance. This has been a decades-long trend
By Claus Vistesen: Copenhagen I have had a nice weekend not least because I have finally received my new laptop and as the first, of many, blog entries to be typed I would like to point your attention to some recent comments made by the German finance minister Peer Steinbrueck in the context of the increasing risk of further downgrades of European sovereigns following the decision by Standard and Poor to downgrade Ireland’s debt rating for the second time in 2009. As I think a bit about what it actually is Mr. Steinbrueck is saying I cannot help but feel that our good Finance minister is perhaps feeling a bit too smug here
As always, when the central planning bureaucrats get in a jam with no way out of the mess they have planned themselves into, they turn to libertarian ideas for the answers. Libertarian ideas with a big-government twist, that is. This article in the Telegraph is astounding: “US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive.” The problem is that American cities are far too centralized and they can no longer be managed effectively by fraudulent, socialist, politically-corrupt city administrations whose financial houses are in disarray
Apropos of Time to Help the People of Iran Overthrow Their Corrupt Regime , Daniel Davies writes: “‘Help’” appears to be a verb in the “superman conditional” tense here; as in, to simply have “help the people of Iran overthrow their corrupt regime” on your “to do” list would make a lot of sense if you were Superman, or God Almighty, but anyone else probably ought to make it a bit more specific than that. Care to make any slightly more concrete suggestions? Good question! Anyone?
Less is more department: Programmer Jean GrosJean (why do I want to write Jean ValJean?) writes: WriteRoom — Distraction free writing software for your Mac : For people who enjoy the simplicity of a typewriter, but live in the digital world. WriteRoom is a distraction free writing environment. Unlike the cluttered word processors you’re used to, WriteRoom lets you focus on writing.
Will Wilkinson: Cash for Clunkers Paul Krugman: The Big Hate Atul Gawande: University of Chicago Medical School Commencement Address Rohan Maitzen: Kate Bush, “Wuthering Heights”; Loreena McKennitt, “The Lady of Shalott” Hedwig and the Angry Inch Does Plato’s Aristophanes from the Symposium: The Origin of Love Daniel Davies: I really really hate dynamic programming Daniel Davies: In Praise of Generalized Non-Parametric Deconvolution Faiz Shakir: Boehner: Republicans ‘took it in the shorts with Bush-Cheney.’ Tim Fernholz: Compare and Contrast: Economic Policy Edition Dr. George F.
(Small) Interest Rate Increases Are Good News, Not Bad News (Washington Post Crashed-and-Burned-and-Smoking Watch)
Over at the Financial Times, the careful, insightful, and highly intelligent Martin Wolf writes: FT.com / Columnists / Martin Wolf – Rising government bond rates prove policy works : Is the US… on the road to fiscal Armageddon? Are recent jumps in government bond rates proof that investors are worried about fiscal prospects
Ed Hugh: Brad Setser Need Be Curious No Longer: China’s exports fell by a record in May Peter Groenwegen: Thomas Carlyle, ‘The Dismal Science’, and the Contemporary Political Economy of Slavery Rothstein: Preventing Markets from Self-Destruction: The Quality of Government Factor Bernanke (2002): Deflation: Making Sure “It” Doesn’t Happen Here Elizabeth Warren et al.: Assessing Treasury’s Strategy: Six Months of TARP Gene Steuerle: Why CBO Won’t Credit Congress for Reducing Health Costs Acemoglu: Introduction to Modern Economic Growth Paul Kedrosky: What is This ‘Lehman’ Incident of Which You Speak? CBO (March 20, 2009): A Preliminary Analysis of the President’s Budget and an Update of CBO’s Budget and Economic Outlook Martin Wolf: Rising government bond rates prove policy works Jo Walton: The Net of a Million Lies: Vernor Vinge’s A Fire Upon the Deep Kathy Sierra: Creating Passionate Users Joey Devilla: Fast Food Apple Pies and Why Netbooks Suck — The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century Matthew Yglesias: How Bipartisan Do You Want
Articles A Formal Model in Hayekian Macroeconomics: The Proportional Goods-in-Process Structure of Production by Renaud Fillieule Austrian Elements of Structuralist Unemployment Theory? by Guido Zimmermann Toward a Clarification of the Block-Demsetz Debate on Psychic Income and Externalities by Michael Brooks Apriorism, Introspection, and the Axiom of Action: A Realist Solution by François Facchini Book Reviews Econospinning: How to Read Between the Lines When the Media Manipulate the Numbers .
We Need to Be Who We Can Be–and That Means We Need to Not Listen to the LIkes of Thomas Friedman and Richard Cohen
Adam Serwer asks: TAPPED Archive : I think Paul Campos’ response to the shooting at the Holocaust Memorial Museum yesterday is worth pondering…. Michelle Malkin wrote an entire book defending the internment on the basis of race in the case of Japanese internment during World War II. Cliff May argued that torture is justified against Muslims because they’re Muslim
China’s Imports and Global Recovery – Brad Setser Need Be Curious No Longer
By Edward Hugh: Barcelona Earlier this week Brad Setser was opining on his blog : “Like everyone else, I am curious to see what China’s May trade data tells us. If China truly is going to lead the global recovery, China needs to import more – and not just import more commodities for its (growing) strategic stockpiles.” Well Brad need restrain his curiosity no longer, since just this very morning we have learnt that: China’s exports fell by a record in May as the global recession cut demand for goods produced by the world’s third-largest economy
Neil Buchanan: The 2009 Social Security Trustees’ Report: Good News Behind the Headlines Ali Frick: Fox News’ Shep Smith: DHS Report Was A ‘Warning To Us All,’ But ‘The Right Went Absolutely Bonkers’ Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Commenters on Sotomayor, Brooks, and Sullivan Robert Waldmann’s Theory on Income Distribution and Infant Mortality Diane Lim Rogers: What’s Not So Great About Obama’s Proposal to Pay As He Goes David Leonhardt: How the U.S. Surplus Became a Deficit Tyler Cowen: My talk on economics for university administrators Posner, Part II: What Now
World Economic Forum on Africa opens with call for global governance reforms
While the London G20 Summit represented a step towards a more inclusive global governance system, further institutional reforms are badly needed to ensure the interests of low-income countries are adequately represented, according to national leaders and other participants gathered at this year’s World Economic Forum on Africa in Cape Town. In particular, they urged the major industrialized countries to accept long-stalled changes in the governing structures of the IMF and the World Bank. “A critical lesson from the current crisis is the need for a transformed global financial system,” Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa, said in his opening address
Can Anybody Tell Me Why Ross Douthat Rather than Megan of Jezebel Writes an Op-Ed Column for the New York Times?
Megan: Jezebel – Op-Ed Writer: Pro-Choicers Have George Tiller’s Blood On Their Hands – Ross douthat late term abortion : I’m starting to suspect that the New York Times is giving increasingly ill-considered and poorly written conservatives column space in an effort to undermine the idea that Republican ideology has any intellectual validity. Otherwise, I don’t really see what the papers’ editors are thinking, between hiring neocon idiot Bill Kristol and then replacing him with slut-shaming, supposedly new-idea-having former Atlantic blogger Ross Douthat
