Category Archives: Macroeconomic policy

Marshall Auerback: Don’t Get Angry – Get Some Real Change

President Obama can solve the economy’s problems and win back his base, but he has to get with the program first.

For once, let’s praise President Obama (marginally), not bury him. As Bo Cutter has already argued, in the aftermath of the elections, the president probably did the best he could do on taxes. Ideally, the issue shouldn’t have even been something to haggle over in the first place had the Democrats (including the president) dealt with it before the midterms.

That said, the president’s petulant rant directed at his base was pathetic and misconceived in the extreme. The “No Drama Obama” guise clearly does not extend to his now frustrated supporters. Obama still genuinely does not have a clue as to why he has lost the trust of so many progressives. Many would have been prepared to cut him some slack if he had given them anything over the past two years, rather than a perpetuation of Rubinomics — an economically regressive blend of crony capitalism and deficit reduction fetishism.

To deal with income inequality, you need something more radical. You need reforms such as caps on executive pay and probably a system that simplifies the tax structure (to avoid creative tax avoidance), along with a broad base and a few basic, low rates to ensure a modicum of compliance….

Marshall Auerback: What Happens if Germany Exits the Euro?

By Marshall Auerback, a portfolio strategist, hedge fund manager, and Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow. Like marriage, membership in the euro zone is supposed to be a lifetime commitment, “for better or for worse”. But as we know, divorces do occur, even if the marriage was entered into with the best of intentions. And the recent […]

Barry Eichengreen: Ireland’s rescue package – Disaster for Ireland, bad omen for the Eurozone

By Barry Eichengreen, Professor of Economics and Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley; and formerly Senior Policy Advisor at the International Monetary Fund. Cross posted from VoxEU Irish interest spreads did not fall and contagion continues. Here one of the world’s leading international economists explains why. Short-sighted, wishful thinking by EU and German […]

More on the Damaging Implications of Corporate Cash-Hoarding

John Authers of the Financial Times provides an update on corporate cash-hoarding. In brief, it’s getting worse due to probably-warranted executive nervousness about business prospects. As Authers puts it: Corporate chieftains the world over have lots of cash, and want to hold on to it. It is a critical symptom of a new Age of […]

Guest Post: A recession to remember – Lessons from the US, 1937–1938

Yves here. Normally I put up cross posts without additional commentary, but I wanted to offer a couple of observations about this post. While this piece is admittedly a bit heavy on economist-speak, and readers may differ with the policy recommendations, = it gives an even-handed account of the early rebound during the Great Depression […]

ECB into the breach?

Various Eurosceptics are piping up this morning, and no wonder. Unfortunately some of the interesting stuff is behind the FT’s magnificently unstable subscription firewall, which, in an attack of paranoia, or megalomania, has decided today, as it occasionally does, to deny access to everything, even the free bits, subscriber or not. It is like something […]

Perfect Storm – February 2013?

A cross-post courtesy of market veteran (and occasional robust NC commenter) Bruce Krasting I wish I could get a penny for every dollar that is going to be paid to lobbyist to fight the various recommendations of the Fiscal Commission. As advertised, they basically took no prisoners save a small portion of the older population […]

Alford: The Fed Tests The Thesis That Two Wrongs Don’t Make A Right, But Three Do

By Richard Alford, a former economist at the New York Fed. 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. In reaction to the OPEC-engineered oil price spikes of the 1970s, which economists would depict as external negative supply […]

Auerback: How Do You Say “Hypocrite” in German?

By Marshall Auerback, a Senior Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, and a market analyst and commentator; first posted at New Deal 2.0. Before throwing rocks at the U.S. for its spending, Germany should take a look at its own crumbling glass house. Okay, I did a few years of German language study, so I know […]

“Rules of Our Society Should Not Be Bought and Sold”: Roosevelt Election Roundup

Round-up of verdicts on the US elections by the New Deal 2.0 team, assembled by Lynn Parramore, Editor of New Deal 2.0 and Media Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute In the wake of a Democratic loss not seen in the House since 1938, upended Senate seats, and Republican gubernatorial wins, Roosevelt Institute Fellows weigh in. […]

Auerback: On McArdle’s Fuzzy Deficit Accounting

By Marshall Auerback, a portfolio strategist and Roosevelt Institute fellow There are plenty of legitimate reasons to criticize Barack Obama’s dismal stewardship of the US economy, and God knows I’ve voiced quite a few of them, but it does not follow that every criticism made of his economic policies is therefore legitimate. There is quite […]

Germany Draws Line in the Sand on Eurozone Bailouts, Insists Bondholders Take Pain

The contradictions of the Eurobailout mechanism were bound to be resolved at some point, smoke and mirror and insufficient firepower relative to the magnitude of the problem will only take you so far. The eurozone rescue operation, although it looked like it was aimed at so called Club Med, aka PIGS sovereigns (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, […]