Naked Keynesianism

Deficit vultures A few days ago, Trump announced South Carolina Rep. Mick Mulvaney to be the director of the Office of Management and Budget. He is a Tea Party nut (he was for Rand Paul, and might have libertarian tendencies), and more importantly a fiscal hawk, and for a balanced budget amendment. Mulvaney is really for cutting spending, including, somewhat surprisingly, military spending, even if he thinks that defense is the first priority of the federal government. So this has...

Not by much. To 0.75%, and yes it wasn't necessary because we're not at full employment yet (Krugman thinks we're; his point is that wages are increasing again, but not that much and participation rates remain low). Two things worth mentioning. One is that Yellen agrees with Krugman, and that signals that the Fed doesn't get what's the current state of the economy. She said: "I believe my predecessor and I called for fiscal stimulus when the unemployment rate was substantially higher than...

I posted about the driverless trucks a while ago. Now Amazon unveiled the no-checkout store, which would threaten the jobs of 3.5 million cashiers according to the Financial Times (subscription required). I was surprised by the figure below.It shows that one of the growing demands in the future will be statisticians. Statisticians? Oh well. Among the losers not just clerks, but also lawyers that specialize in shoplifting (and DUI in the case of the driverless vehicles, besides the obvious,...

Work for whom? That's what Martin Sandbu (subscription required) asks in the Financial Times. In his view, it might. He cites Ken Rogoff -- of spreadsheet fame -- who also has said that it's a possibility. Sandbu cites Summers doubts on Trumponomics, which are all based on supply side factors, but has very little to say about that.* Like Rogoff, Sandbu thinks that what matters is private investment that matters, meaning demand, and, as it must be in these cases, the confidence fairy...

Soybean Republic As promised, here are some brief reflections on the situation in Argentina, which I think is not as bad as in Brazil economically or politically, surprisingly, since Argentina had a balance of payments problem that is completely absent in the increasingly chaotic neighbor, and the left actually lost the election, which was not the case of Dilma (a coup was required to defenestrate her). As I suggested in my talk a year ago (for non Spanish speakers go to this text), the...

Strange indeed I've been off for a few days for Thanksgiving, as you might have noticed. I visited Argentina, and will have something to say about the situation there in a few days. Here is something I was thinking about what is going on in Brazil, that seems to be in a never ending economic and political crisis. I find the situation particularly concerning for the future of the left in the region.There is a very nice little book about The Strange Death of Liberal England, (oddly...

More from the Economists for Peace and Security conference. The macro panel, with Josh Bivens, Nancy Altman, Pavlina Tcherneva, and Stephanie Kelton. [embedded content] EPS Symposium: Policy Challenges for the New US President: Jobs, Wages, Health & Social Security: What's Next? from Thea Harvey.

[embedded content] EPS Symposium: Policy Challenges for the New US President: Global Security: Russia, China, Europe and Latin America from Thea Harvey on Vimeo.

From Rod O'DonnellDECEMBER 8, 2016. THE CLOSING DATE FOR THE CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGN FOR THE JMK WRITINGS PROJECT. I thank, from the bottom of my heart, all those who have backed the campaign, with donations ranging from USD5 to USD1,000. Almost everyone has said complimentary things about the proposed edition (‘great idea’, ‘wonderful project’, ‘best of luck’ etc), but far fewer have followed up with contributions. The bottom line is this. Funds are essential if the edition is to be...