Double bubble trouble in China
The deleveraging of the Chinese economy has always seemed likely to be a long and troublesome saga, lasting many years or even decades if it is to prove successful. The…
Welcome home Herbert Stein…..
Ok all you students of history out there, wake up and watch Greece. There is a Great Depression in action happening before your eyes in real time. It will not…
Which Countries Work Hardest? You Might (Not) Be Surprised
Imagine you had to choose, and could choose: you can spend your whole life and raise your family in either of two equally prosperous countries. In one country people work lots of hours to…
Puerto Rico's finances: Another fine debt crisis
UK Only Article: standard article Fly Title: Puerto Rico's finances Rubric: Startling parallels between Greece and an American outpost in the Caribbean Byline: D.R. Location: NEW YORK Main image: 20150704_blp907.jpg…
How can Labour say it didn’t crash the economy
If my memory serves me correctly, one of the rounds of applause received in the UK election debate on Thursday was when Clegg said that Miliband should have apologised for…
Two Warning Signs
Photo Credit: Kevin TrotmanBefore I write this evening, I have updated the blog’s theme so that it is more readable on mobile devices. I’ve tried to preserve most of the…
Apparently ISIS is going to throw homosexuals off the Tower of Pizza!
I hope they at least let my step daughter and her life partner get a slice of pepperoni before they give them the old heave ho! https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2963229/ISIS-vow-Rome-throw-homosexuals-leaning-tower-PIZZA.html
The bond trader who came in from the cold
Simon Fasdal, fresh from a visit to Moscow, looks at the pros and cons of Russian assets and why Russian corporate bonds, despite many risk factors, could be the choice…
Yellen shoots for ‘equilibrium’ interest rates
Getty Images The financial markets listened to Janet Yellen’s speech on “normalising” monetary policy last Friday, shrugged, and moved on largely unaffected. It was, indeed, a dovish speech, of the…
Urban regeneration: Polishing the city of gold
UK Only Article: standard article Issue: What does Hillary stand for? Fly Title: Urban regeneration Rubric: As badlands get cleaned up, the poor still get pushed to the margins Location:…
Clinton Finally Announces Her Message: Banality and Incoherence.
The much-ballyhooed announcement video offers little hint [of who, policy-wise, Clinton is]. For the first half-minute or so, you would be excused for thinking that it was some sort of detergent commercial,…
Cyclically adjusted deficits and instability
Jean Pisani-Ferry, currently advising the French government and former director of Bruegel (the Brussels-based economic think tank) has written a heartfelt plea for more stability in the Commission’s estimates of…
The Bond Market Tells The Fed What To Do, Not Vice-Versa
Photo Credit: Tulane Public Relations || James Carville wants to be “reincarnated” as the bond market, to scare everyone — boo!I was reading this article at Reuters, and musing at…
Don’t call them ISIS or ISIL or Daesh…..They are the United Pretend State of Goat Foggers.
That's UPSOGF for short.Gonna throw my daughter off the Leaning Tower of Pizza? I got three words for you and the first one isn't "I".
Global growth report card: world slowdown causes concern
Last month, the global report card concluded that world economic activity was expanding at a roughly constant growth rate, with a slowdown in the US and China being offset by…
Growth in America: Careful now
UK Only Article: standard article Issue: What does Hillary stand for? Fly Title: Growth in America Rubric: Unless wages grow, America’s economic blip could become a trend Location: ROYERSFORD, PENNSYLVANIA…
Greece pays up…but where did the cash come from?
As Greece makes its payment to the IMF we hear that the country did not seek any financial aid from Russia. And while it's solved the immediate crisis, the Greek…
Good Jobs First reveals top federal subsidy recipients: Subsidy Tracker 3.0
Slow to be getting to this, but I have to come back to such a major development. Good Jobs First, a national non-profit best known for its work on state…
Macro teaching and the financial crisis
Some macro textbooks (not all) are a bit like extensively modified code. You can see the structure of the original code, even after extensive software development. This can mean that,…
On Human Fertility, Part 4
I write about this every now and then, because human fertility is falling faster then most demographers expect. Using the CIA Factbook for data, the present total fertility rate for…