The Angry Bear

Has the Phillips curve vanished ? There is widespread discussion of the possibility that the Phillips curve has become horizontal. I am old enough to remember when all serious economists agreed that, in the long run, it is vertical. The reason for the thought that it might be horizontal is that large important countries have unemployment lower than estimated non accelerating inflation rates, and yet still have low inflation (including low wage...

The more people think about the Republican proposal to cut corporate taxes the worse it looks. Most people dismiss the argument that the benefits will trickle down to workers. Supporters’ argument is that reduced taxes on profits will cause increased investment which causes higher production and wages. There are strong arguments that the tax cut won’t cause firms to invest more. But aside from that, increased investment wouln’t cause (all) of the...

Proposing A Judicial Coup Via A Tax Bill On today’s Washington Post editorial page in a column entitled “Packing the courts like a turducken” (a deboned duck within a deboned chicken within a deboned turkey, or something like that, all for Thanksgiving, thank you), Ronald A. Klain not only reports on the actual push to pack courts with lots of young, incompetent extremists that is going on after Congress sat on judicial nominees by Obama in recent years,...

Two Powerful Women Losing Power That would be respective Angela Merkel and Janet Yellen, both reported to have lost a lot of power in today’s Washington Post.  During at least the last year, if not the last four, they have been probably the two most powerful women on the planet. In the case of Merkel, what has happened is that she has failed to form a coalition government after last month’s election, which put her and her party in the lead, but not...

This article looks at the future of colleges and universities: There are over 4,000 colleges and universities in the United States, but Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen says that half are bound for bankruptcy in the next few decades. Christensen is known for coining the theory of disruptive innovation in his 1997 book, “The Innovator’s Dilemma.” Since then, he has applied his theory of disruption to a wide range of industries,...

Another article from Jared Bernstein Washington Post: There’s an interesting sort of argument going on between Stansbury/Summers (SS) and Mishel/Bivens (MB). My name has been invoked as well, so I’ll weigh in. It’s a “sort-of” argument because there’s less disagreement than first appears. It all revolves around this chart, which plots to the real compensation of mid-wage workers against the growth in productivity. For years they grew together, then they...

Lifted from comments reader Denis Drew: Donald Trump’s Response to Disaster Aid for California: Nothing Kevin DrumNov. 20, 2017http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/11/donald-trumps-response-to-disaster-aid-for-california-nothing/ “A few weeks ago, California requested $7.4 billion in disaster aid following the massive series of wildfires in the northern part of the state that killed 43 people and destroyed nearly 9,000 structures. Actually, let’s...

Via Washington Post, Jared Bernstein writes: The Republican tax cut plan has been justly criticized for worsening both income inequality and the national debt, but the plan has another big problem: It’s likely to lead to more outsourcing of U.S. jobs and a larger trade deficit. That’s obviously a negative for factory jobs and net exports, but it’s also precisely the opposite of what Trump continues to promise to many of his working-class supporters....

by Joseph Joyce Venezuela and the Next Debt Crisis The markets for the bonds of emerging markets have been rattled by developments in Venezuela. On November 13,Standard & Poor’s declared Venezuela to be in default after that country missed interest payments of $200 million on two government bonds. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro had pledged to restructure and refinance his country’s $60 billion debt, but there were no concrete proposals offered at...