Category Archives: Macroeconomic policy

Guest Post: On, and Beyond, Deficits

By DoctoRx, who writes at EconBlog Review:Introduction A few days ago, Naked Capitalism kicked off a series of posts on government deficits with a first-of-two posts by me. My Debate on Deficits, was followed by posts by Marshall Auerback, Rob Parenteau and Dr. Edward Harrison. My initial post was itself a response to Dr. Harrison’s […]

Guest Post: Galbraith Says Administration’s Sole Goal is to Restore System of 5 or 10 Years Ago, But Confidence Won’t be Restored Unless Fraud Which Caused the Crash is Investigated

By George Washington of Washington’s Blog. As I have repeatedly written, the largest U.S. banks have repeatedly gone bankrupt due to wild speculation which was blessed by the Fed, and then the government covered up their bankruptcy. Indeed, the New York Times writes today about one of the too big to fails: Over the past […]

Guest Post: Conservatives and Liberals Agree: Proposed Bank Oversight Bill Will Make Things Worse

By George Washington of Washington’s Blog. When a liberal labor leader and a conservative financial policy analyst unite against something, you know that something is really bad (actually, I don’t believe in the whole false left-right dichotomy; I think its Americans versus those trying to steal our wallets and our rights, but that’s another story). […]

The choice is between increasing or decreasing aggregate demand

By Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns. DoctoRx, Rob Parenteau and Marshall Auerback have each written articles here to bring clarity to some issues I first raised at the beginning of the month in my post, “The recession is over but the depression has just begun.” As I see it, the issue we are debating has […]

All Debt is Not Created Equal: Government Debt is NOT the Same as Private Debt

By Marshall Auerback, an investment strategist and analyst who writes for New Deal 2.0. A major shortcoming in an otherwise thoughtful post by DoctoRX on deficit spending is a traditional mistake in which analysts seek to analogise the expenditures of government with that of a private household or business. The government is sovereign. This fact […]

Guest Post: Big Banks Are NOT More Efficient

By George Washington of Washington’s Blog. I have repeatedly pointed out that big banks are not more efficient than smaller banks. For example, I previously noted that an article in Fortune concluded: The largest banks often don’t show the greatest efficiency. This now seems unsurprising given the deep problems that the biggest institutions have faced […]

Debate on Deficits: A Reply from Rob Parenteau

Rob Parenteau, CFA, sole proprietor of MacroStrategy Edge, editor of the Richebacher Letter, and a research associate with the Levy Economics Institute, responds to DoctoRx’s post, “Debate on Deficits.” DoctoRx raises a wide swath of excellent questions regarding the correct approach to financial crises, the economic contractions they can induce, and the best way forward. […]

Guest Post: Debate on Deficits

We are going to feature a series of posts this week on the merits of the idea of using Federal deficits to stimulate an economy in severe recession or depression. The first offering is from DoctoRx, who writes at EconBlog Review: Part I. INTRODUCTION Robert Rubin’s home town of Miami Beach contains any number of […]

Marc Faber: Taking the inflationista view of macro events

Submitted by Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns. This is a re-post of an article I wrote last night at Credit Writedowns where I stressed a U.S.-centric view of Faber’s comments that the Fed is a money printer. However, here I have re-dubbed the post to reflect Faber’s comments, which are more comprehensive, in effect pointing […]

The recession is over but the depression has just begun

Submitted by Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns This is a post I wrote earlier to day at Credit Writedowns. I just noticed that Albert Edwards and David Rosenberg are saying similar things. See the FT Alphaville post on their comments here. As for me, for the last few months, I have been casting around looking […]

Guest Post: Credit Default Swaps – Love ‘Em, Ban ‘Em, or Tax ‘Em?

(Yves should be back – and so the site should return to normal – tomorrow. If all goes according to plan, you’ll be hearing a lot less from me for a week or so. Yves’ book – Econned – will be quite valuable, and so well worth the wait. ) By George Washington of Washington’s […]

Guest Post: How Well Has The Federal Reserve Performed for America?

By George Washington of Washington’s Blog. How well has the Federal Reserve performed for America? Mainstream pundits, of course, say that Bernanke has saved the world . . . . but they said the same thing about Greenspan. So let’s look at the actual historical record to determine how well the Fed has done. Initially, […]

Guest Post: Why Concentration in the Banking Industry Threatens Our Economy

By George Washington of Washington’s Blog. As everyone knows, the big banks have gotten bigger and bigger. Noted economist Mark Zandi says we have an oligopoly of banks, and that “the oligopoly has tightened”. The TARP Inspector – Neil Barofsky – told Huffington Post yesterday that, because of the consolidation in the banking industry: I […]

Guest Post: Deflation?

By George Washington of Washington’s Blog. As Absolute Return Partners wrote in its July newsletter: The most important investment decision you will have to make this year and possibly for years to come is whether to structure your portfolio for deflation or inflation. So which is it, inflation or deflation? This is obviously a hot […]

Guest Post: Top Economists Say We Must Break Up the Insolvent Banks (Government Says Let’s Make Them Bigger)

By George Washington of Washington’s Blog. The following top economists and financial experts believe that the economy cannot recover unless the big, insolvent banks are broken up in an orderly fashion: Nobel prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz Nobel prize-winning economist, Ed Prescott Dean and professor of finance and economics at Columbia Business School, and chairman of […]