Category Archives: Macroeconomic policy

NC Crowdsourcing! Whither the Deficit Cliffhanger?

I’m obviously removed from the action, but I’m surprised at the complacency in DC and in the markets over the fact that the sequester is a comin’ soon. Next week Congress is out of session, and the media messaging from both sides at this point lacks the sense of urgency (in particular, front page reports of intense pow-wows) that I’d expect if a deal were to be done by the sequester deadline of early March.

So I have these questions for the NC commentariat:

Obama Retrades Broken First Term Campaign Minimum Wage Promise in State of the Union Address

It takes a lot of chutzpah for Obama to recycle a watered-down version of a 2008 campaign commitment and present it as his brightest, shiniest promise in the State of the Union address laying out his second term priorities.

Modern Monetary Theory, Bears 2.0 Style

A Bears-style video on MMT was posted earlier this month. While I like the innovation of a Sharon Stone-ish head and her smashed up interlocutor, and I think this video is well done, I have my doubts as to whether this approach is an effective way to educate people about MMT.

Richard Koo Debunks the “Deleveraging is Almost Done, American Consumer Getting Ready for Good Times” Meme

Richard Koo of Nomura published an important piece earlier this week which got some attention in the financial blogosphere (Clusterstock, FT Alphaville). It takes issue with a critical part of the economist optimists’ case, namely, that consumer deleveraging is about done and therefore the economy is likely to perform much better in the next few years.

All Good Democrats Applaud Republicans Rearranging Battle Lines in Austerity Phony War

As we anticipated, the Republicans have climbed down on making the debt ceiling the key battle line in their plan to impose spending cuts. Good Democrats applauded that move as a sign that Obama had displayed toughness and prevailed.

It’s not quite that simple.

Philip Pilkington: The Japanese Stimulus – Will It Work?

By Philip Pilkington, a writer and research assistant at Kingston University in London. You can follow him on Twitter @pilkingtonphil

There’s a lot of talk flying around about the Japanese stimulus. Some appears to be misguided, some appears to be sensible.

Joe Firestone: The Great Austerity Swindle!

By Joe Firestone, Ph.D., Managing Director, CEO of the Knowledge Management Consortium International (KMCI), and Director of KMCI’s CKIM Certificate program. He has taught political science as the graduate and undergraduate level and blogs regularly at Corrente, Firedoglake and Daily Kos as letsgetitdone. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives

Our Congresspeople, corporate CEOs, tea partiers, most economists, Pete Peterson’s minions, and even our President, tell us that we’re running out of money; and that we can’t keep running huge deficits, and increasing our national debt forever, because eventually, our creditors will just cease lending us our dollars back….

Bill Black: German Growth Goes Negative but Merkel’s Press Remains Glowing

By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives

It is good to be Angela Merkel.

Richard Alford: To Learn or Not to Learn, That is the Question

By Richard Alford, a former New York Fed economist. Since then, he has worked in the financial industry as a trading floor economist and strategist on both the sell side and the buy side.

The US has experienced numerous disasters both natural and man-made. Unfortunately, the authorities have not always availed themselves of the opportunity to learn from these episodes.

Joe Firestone: Austerian Obama Kisses Platinum Coin Bargaining Chip Goodbye, but the Coin May Rise Again

By Joe Firestone, Ph.D., Managing Director, CEO of the Knowledge Management Consortium International (KMCI), and Director of KMCI’s CKIM Certificate program. He has taught political science as the graduate and undergraduate level and blogs regularly at Corrente, Firedoglake and Daily Kos as letsgetitdone

Yesterday, Ezra Klein ~~mouthpieced for Treasury and Fed~~ reported in the Washington Post that:

The Treasury Department will not mint a trillion-dollar platinum coin to get around the debt ceiling. If they did, the Federal Reserve would not accept it.

Needless to say, it’s not surprising that a reading of the underlying statutes suggests Obama was free to use the platinum coin to circumvent the debt ceiling, and conveniently scapegoats the Fed to hide his own preference for imposing austerity.