The Bank for International Settlements has a great chart of house prices in its latest annual report (p. 39): The rise and fall of U.S. house prices (red) is painfully familiar. The U.K. (brown) outdid the U.S. on the upswing, but hasn’t corrected quite as much. (Some other European nations also saw strong booms, but [...]
Archive for June, 2010
The Rise and Fall of World House Prices
Posted in International, Macroeconomics, tagged Housing, Macroeconomics on June 29, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Consumer Spending is 60% of the Economy, not 70%
Posted in Data, Economy, Macroeconomics, tagged Consumers, Data, Economy, GDP, Macroeconomics on June 25, 2010 | 12 Comments »
Early Friday, the Bureau of Economic Analysis released its third look at economic growth in the first quarter. The results were disappointing: BEA now estimates that Q1 growth was only 2.7%, down from the prior estimate of 3.0%. A key reason: consumer spending was weaker than previously thought. As I noted in May, the monthly [...]
Gaming the Budget Window
Posted in Budget, tagged Budget, Pensions, Taxes on June 23, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Faced with continuing gridlock over a soup-to-nuts extenders bill, congressional leaders have gotten creative in their legislative strategy. Exhibit A is a stripped-down bill that passed the Senate by unanimous consent on Friday. This bill would temporarily reverse the 21% cut in Medicare physician payment rates that took effect earlier this month. The price tag [...]
Expeditionary Economics
Posted in International, Macroeconomics, tagged Afghanistan, Defense, Development, Haiti, Iraq on June 20, 2010 | 3 Comments »
The U.S. military is now a major player in economic development. In Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, economic stabilization is a core tenet of its counterinsurgency strategy. Which makes good sense, in theory, but raises a troubling practical question: does the military actually know anything about economic stabilization and development? In a recent essay in [...]
Vuvuzelas, Afghanistan, and Fannie and Freddie
Posted in Finance, International, Life, tagged Afghanistan, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, GSE, Humor, Sports on June 17, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Updates on some previous posts: Some broadcasters are filtering the dreaded vuvuzela. More home filtering advice for the vuvuzela (ht: Alex and Jeff) Yankee fan gets booted for blowing his vuvu (money quote: “I have been tossed from [Yankee Stadium] hundreds of times. Many times I even deserved it. … But this was ridiculous.” Afghanistan’s [...]
“Legal Tender” by Merle Hazard
Posted in Macroeconomics, tagged Humor, Money on June 17, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
A quick history of money–from cigarettes to fiat currency–courtesy of Merle Hazard: Sung to the tune of “Love Me Tender” which turns out to have been based on the tune of “Aura Lee” from 1861. (There’s a gold joke in there somewhere.)
The Budget Uncertainties of Health Reform
Posted in Budget, Health, Politics, tagged Budget, Health, Politics on June 16, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Back in March, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the new health legislation would reduce the federal budget deficit by about $140 billion over the next ten years and by about 0.5% of gross domestic product in the decade after that. Ever since, analysts have been debating whether we should believe those estimates. Some [...]
Afghanistan and the Resource Curse
Posted in Energy, Environment, International, tagged Afghanistan, Resource Curse on June 14, 2010 | 4 Comments »
Yesterday, the New York Times reported that the United States has identified “vast mineral riches in Afghanistan“: The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government [...]
The Vuvuzela Externality
Posted in Life, Microeconomics, Uncategorized, tagged Microeconomics, Sports on June 13, 2010 | 23 Comments »
Thus far, the top three stories of the World Cup are (3) Germany looks strong, (2) the U.S. got lucky, and (1) the vuvuzela is remarkably annoying. For those who haven’t tuned in yet, the vuvuzela is a meter-long plastic horn whose name translates roughly as “making a vuvu noise.” And make a noise it [...]
Borrowing from One Pocket to Lend to the Other
Posted in Budget, tagged Budget, New York, Pensions, States on June 12, 2010 | 3 Comments »
Public pensions funds are the key budget challenge facing many state and local governments. Why? Because it’s been easy for officials to promise future pension benefits without setting aside enough money to pay for them (the same problem afflicts corporate pension plans and Social Security). The New York Times has a front-page story describing New [...]
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