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EconLog: Library of Economics and Liberty: The Best of Times, the Worst of Times
Greg Mankiw's Blog: More Spending Stimulus Skeptics
Club for Growth: Monday's Daily News
EconoSpeak: Hassett and the Paradox of Thrift
The visible hand in economics: Borrowing, expectations, and potential output
The Best of Times, the Worst of Times
EconLog: Library of Economics and Liberty —
... BLS. In Q4 of 1992, the nonfarm business sector productivity index stood at 101.265. In Q4 of 2000, it was 116.824. In Q3 of 2008, it was 141.207. That means that under President Clinton, productivity rose a total of 15 percent. Under President Bush, productivity rose a total of 21 percent. I think it is wrong to associate economic performance of any kind with Presidents, but if you are going to play that game, you should mention productivity as well as employment. On the other hand, Kevin Hassett points out ways in which things definitely got worse. How could the deficit ...
More Spending Stimulus Skeptics
Greg Mankiw's Blog —
Gary Becker: Perhaps their [Romer and Bernstein's] estimates of the stimulus provided by direct government spending are in the right ballpark, but I tend to believe that they are excessive. For one thing, the true value of these government programs may be limited because they will be put together hastily, and are likely to contain a lot of political pork and other inefficiencies. For another thing, with unemployment at 7% to 8% of the labor force, it is impossible to target effective spending programs that primarily utilize unemployed workers, or underemployed capital. Spending on infrastructure, and especially on health, energy, and education, ...
Monday's Daily News
Club for Growth —
THE DAILY NEWS
Bank of the United States - Wall Street Journal Editorial
Some Obama Aides Had Qualms About Econ Ideas - Charles Babington, AP
Big Changes to Obama Stimulus Plan - Manu Raju, The Politico
Is Government Spending Too Easy an Answer? - Greg Mankiw, New York Times
Trillion-Dollar Spree is Road to Ruin, Not Rally - Kevin Hassett, Bloomberg
Soak the Rich?: It's a Perilous Path for Democrats - Michael Franc, NRO
Obama Climate Czar has Socialist Ties - Stephen Dinan, Washington Times
Saving Is Stimulus - John Tamny, Forbes.com ...
Hassett and the Paradox of Thrift
EconoSpeak —
I nominate Kevin Hassett for the worse argument yet against the Obama fiscal stimulus: We are in the midst of a crisis caused by so many financial institutions borrowing too much money. Somehow, a critical mass of policy makers now believes that the correct response is for the U.S. government to borrow too much money. Financial institutions lend money to those who wish to invest more than they save. Our current problem is not that there is too much private investment – rather it is that there is too little private investment. OK, ...
Borrowing, expectations, and potential output
The visible hand in economics —
Over at EconoSpeak they have attacked Kevin Hassett on his call that the US government should run a balanced budget (ht Economist’s View).
Now, although I don’t necessarily agree with Kevin Hassett’s prescriptions, I can understand his feeling that the “paradox of thrift” argument for more government spending seems a bit strange in the case where public and private debt are elevated.
Fundamentally, I believe that all the debate stems from different peoples view of “the natural rate of output”.
If we completely believe the CBO potential output projections (which I ...
