The Group of 30 central bankers and economists has produced a new report, "Fundamentals of central banking: lessons from the crisis". It traces the history of central banking theory and practice, including the economic thought that underlies it. And it draws from it some important lessons about the causes of the 2008 crisis and the reasons for the very long, slow recovery. I've discussed the main themes of the report here (Forbes).But in this post, I want to focus on a particular piece of...
Read More »The 1870s Economic Crisis in America: Reality versus Rothbard
It doesn’t matter how many times Rothbard’s view of the 1870s is refuted, Austrians and libertarians simply continue to shun reality and repeat Rothbard’s errors (such as here and here).It can’t hurt to review the data.First, industrial production. The best and most recent index of US industrial production in this era is Davis (2004) (see Hanes 2013: 121), which draws on many more industrial products and services than other, older indices.The data from Davis shows that US industrial...
Read More »Unemployment is unchanged and so is the Republican Party
So nothing new in the last report. 215k jobs created and unemployment rate at 5.3%. Below the employment to population ratio.It has started to go up. But there is a long way to go. By the way, in the Republican debate I didn't hear anything different as a solution for the economic problems. Tax cuts, presumably for the wealthy (job creators is not used anymore), a flat tax and even tything instead of income taxes. Deregulation always. They are for military expansion too. And yes military...
Read More »Eurocrisis, Myth and Reality, part 1: Big Job Creation in Spain
In the new series George Dorgan suggests that the euro crisis is a temporary development but not a long-lasting crisis. In the first part he shows that Spain actually created a lot of jobs in last twenty five years.
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