Well, it certainly isn’t routine this time. Life was much simpler on the West Wing: This is a repost from May.
Archive for July, 2011
Debt Limit: Routine or the End of the World?
Posted in Budget, Politics, tagged Debt, Debt Limit, Humor, Politics on July 29, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Economy is Worse Than We Knew; Uncertainty Still Reigns
Posted in Economy, Macroeconomics, tagged Economy, Macroeconomics on July 29, 2011 | 3 Comments »
Tim Kane at the Kauffman Foundation is out with his latest survey of economics bloggers (full disclosure: I am both an adviser to the survey and a participant in it). In light of today’s abysmal GDP report, the results for one question are particularly relevant: The latest revisions shows that GDP growth in recent quarters was much [...]
Why Do Half of Americans Pay No Federal Income Tax?
Posted in Budget, Politics, tagged Budget, Income, Politics, Taxes on July 27, 2011 | 65 Comments »
You may have heard the claim that about half of Americans pay no federal income tax. That’s a true fact. My Tax Policy Center colleagues estimate, for example, that 46% of households either will pay no federal income tax in 2011 or will receive more from the IRS than they pay in. Today, TPC released a new study that [...]
Raise the Debt Ceiling Rap
Posted in Budget, Macroeconomics, tagged Budget, Debt, Debt Limit, Federal Reserve, Humor, Macroeconomics on July 26, 2011 | 2 Comments »
Today’s humor break: Remy does the Debt Ceiling Rap (with some asides about monetary policy): Best line: “I got a monetary plan, and it involves a lot of toner.”
Ranking U.S. Economic Recoveries
Posted in Data, Macroeconomics, tagged Data, Graphics, Macroeconomics on July 26, 2011 | 1 Comment »
The Wall Street Journal has a lovely graphic this morning illustrating the strengths and weaknesses of U.S. economic recoveries since World War II. No surprise, the current recovery is long on weaknesses and short on strengths: The graphic is based on a very similar one the IMF included in its recent overview of the U.S. economy [...]
Fedspeak on Quantitative Accommodation
Posted in Macroeconomics, tagged Federal Reserve, Macroeconomics, Monetary Policy on July 25, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
In case you haven’t heard of him, let me introduce Brian Sack. As Executive Vice President at the New York Fed, he’s the guy in charge of implementing the Federal Reserves’s monetary policy efforts including all the purchases of agency securities and Treasury bonds in QE1 and QE2 (LSAP1 and LSAP2 in Fedspeak, where they are known as large-scale asset purchases). Sack [...]
Does the Gang of Six Cut Taxes or Raise Them?
Posted in Budget, Politics, tagged Budget, Debt, Deficit, Taxes on July 20, 2011 | 5 Comments »
Here’s a quick multiple choice quiz about the Gang of Six’s new budget proposal. Over the next ten years, would the proposal: a. Cut taxes by $1.5 trillion b. Increase taxes by $2.0 trillion c. Increase taxes by $1.2 trillion d. All of the above. If you answered (d), you have a fine future as [...]
Let’s Eliminate the Debt Limit
Posted in Budget, Politics, tagged Budget, Debt, Debt Limit on July 18, 2011 | 10 Comments »
My latest column at the Christian Science Monitor: America’s leaders need to get to yes on a budget deal – one that marries substantial deficit cuts with a much-needed increase in the debt limit. But that’s not enough. Rather than merely increasing the debt limit, we should eliminate it. I realize that sounds strange. With [...]
How Will Colleges Innovate?
Posted in Teaching, tagged Education, Teaching on July 15, 2011 | 5 Comments »
That’s the question that Jeffrey Selingo poses over the The Chronicle of Higher Education (ht: Jack B.): [I]f current economic trends continue, much of traditional academe is going to be forced to change. Families can no longer use their house as an ATM. States are making tough choices about the size of government, and public colleges [...]
The Supply and Demand for War
Posted in International, Microeconomics, tagged Microeconomics, Supply and Demand, War on July 13, 2011 | 2 Comments »
Wars are becoming more common. Writing at History Today, Kathryn Hadley reports (ht: The Browser): New research by Professors Mark Harrison from the University of Warwick and Nikolaus Wolf from Humboldt University has revealed that between 1870 and 2001, the frequency of wars between states increased steadily by 2% a year on average. “Steadily” might be [...]
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