Talking about public debt: dumb, dumber and dumbest

As austerity is all the rage among policy making elites I thought it would be a good time to talk about ways of measuring public debt.  Here I will deal with the dumb way, the dumber way and dumbest way … Continue reading →

Debt Refinancing, the Federal Government and the Provinces

Ok this post is in the form of a naive question.  And it goes like this:  If the Federal Government can borrow (MMTers don’t vide your back-end here, I know they do not have to go to the bond markets) … Continue reading →

The Circus of Greed: the Political Economy of Ratings Agencies

Would be hard not to know by today that the S&P downgraded the US .  What is less well known is why it is further evidence of the circus of greed that is the American financial and political system.  First, … Continue reading →

The Right Wing Commentariat is getting Desperate

Just go read Terence Corcoran’s latest in the National Post.  Never mind that the world was plunged into economic crisis by unregulated financial institutions and near fully captured regulators; never mind that by most accounts the financial regulatory reform that … Continue reading →

Just who are Paul Krugman’s people? And a side dish of MMT

I know Paul thought he was just being relaxed. Moses knows we all have a right to relax de temps en temps but it is a really remarkable slippage. In his latest post he writes: So: I basically think of … Continue reading →

Corporate tax cuts, employmnent and aggregate demand

I was busy trying to write something all day on the issue. But the good citizens over at the Progressive Economics Forum pumped out one serious post after another. So all I can say is go read the posts. Oh … Continue reading →

The campaign the BC NDP did not fight

Not that it was totally inexplicable it is just that it was incredibly short-sighted. I am of course talking about the BC NDPs decision to join the populist attack on the HST. The fact is that it is almost impossible … Continue reading →

Krugman pins the tail on the Elephant

Krugman gets it right in both the pith and the substance of the matter on the overcompensated public sector workers in Wisconsin.  Short of it: they are not.  This is a must read. The Contribution Scam David Cay Johnston has … Continue reading →

It is official: austerity “works”

As many predicted the highly contractionary budget of the coalition government would in fact cause a contraction of the UK economy.  The revised numbers indicate that the UK economy contracted by 0.6 percent in the last quarter of 2010.  Which … Continue reading →