Category Archives: The dismal science

Reducing Carbon Emissions Won’t Halt Economic Growth

The big obstacle to reducing carbon emissions isn’t economic costs, but inertia and the impact on powerfully placed special interests.

Negative Interest Rate Conundrum

Why are central banks and governments opting for their unusual negative interest rate stance?

Mirabile Dictu: Lead Story at Bloomberg Gives a Thumbs Up to MMT

Bloomberg gives a fairminded and reasonably detailed report on MMT.

Louis Proyect: Boom Bust Boom

Boom Bust Boom a wickedly funny but mind-expanding analysis of 2008 crisis driven by the proposition that the capitalist system is inherently unstable.

Gaius Publius: The Goal of the Neo-Liberal Consensus Is to Manage the Decline

Neoliberals want ordinary people to accept that their standard of living will decline. It’s not hard to see whose interest that story promotes.

Krugman Then and Now on Trade

Krugman shifts ground (yet again) as hostility to the negative effects of trade deals appears to be a big component of Sanders’ Michigan upset

Gerald Friedman Responds to the Romers on the Sanders Plan: Different Models, Different Politics

Gerald Friedman explains that the difference between his results and that of the Romers on the Sanders plan is the result of using different models.

Galbraith: Attack on Sanders’ Economic Plan By Former Chairs of the Council of Economic Advisors Irresponsible

Jamie Galbraith discusses in some detail why Gerald Friedman, a Clinton supporter who gave a favorable review of Sanders’ economic plan, is owed an apology by his detractors.

Forecasting Elections

How have prediction markets done versus the pundits in forecasting the 2016 elections so far?

James Galbraith Describes Major Forecast Failure in Model Used by Romers to Attack Friedman on Sanders Plan

James Galbraith examines the used forecast by Christine Romer and David Romer to attack Gerald Friedman’s favorable review of Sanders’ plan. He’d already shellacked the methodology in a 2014 book.

Negative Rates, Negative Reactions

A new survey suggests that negative rates will be counterproductive. Consumers will not spend more, as central banks wish, but will hoard.

Bill Black: Krugman Triples Down on His Smear of Friedman and Bernie

Krugman has really lost it.

Krugman and His Gang’s Libeling of Economist Gerald Friedman for Finding That Conventional Models Show That Sanders Plan Could Work

Krugman has made maliciously false statements about economics professor Gerald Friedman. Demand that the New York Times issue a correction and that Krugman apologize.

The ECB’s Original Sin and Franco Modigliani’s Long View

Franco Modigliani foresaw how the ECB and the Eurozone architecture had an anti-growth bias and proposed remedies that were ignored.