June 2012
15 posts
Brad DeLong, "The Perils of Prophecy" →
Those who said that there would be no downturn, or that recovery would be rapid, or that the economy’s real problems were structural, or that supporting the economy would produce inflation (or high short-term interest rates), or that immediate fiscal austerity would be expansionary were wrong. Not just a little wrong. Completely wrong.
Of course, we historically-minded economists are not...
Steve Waldman, "Stabilizing prices is immoral" →
It is fairly obvious, then, that restraining prices in the face of a supply shock effects a transfer from debtors, taxpayers, and marginal workers to creditors and secure workers. A policy of price restraint is a form of insurance for creditors and secure workers, who are absolved of the risk that the purchasing power of their nominal assets will suffer an unforeseen decay. It is financed with a...
Nos están tomando el pelo sobre la banca
La rueda de prensa de hoy sobre la banca ha sido un espectáculo surrealista. Un par de cabezas de turco salieron a deliberadamente ofuscar la crítica situación de la banca española.
Según la consultoria Oliver Wyman, el sector financiero español sólo necesitará entre 51.000M y 62.000M de euros en un contexto adverso. Esta cifra tan optimista se calcula a base de sumar unas perdidas gigantescas...
Oliver Schmolke and Cilia Ebert-Liebskind, "New... →
An essential contribution from Policy Network on the challenges of bringing together the new social movements and social democratic parties:
In the past years, we have witnessed the birth of a new political culture: social movements comparable to the student movement in the 1960s or the “green” peace camp in the 1980s attract the most passionate members of society. While their activists, who...
Global Public Opinion
Via Left Foot Forward, I came across the International Trade Union Confederation’s Global Poll 2012. My brother over at Urtak would insist that pollsters can only tell us what they already know.
Crónica de una muerte anunciada
Esto es una traducción de mi última entrada para Social Europe:
El FROB recibirá hasta €100.000 millones, según lo que nos cuentan. El Presidente Mariano Rajoy se ha referido a esta intervención como una “buena noticia”; aparentemente la escuela Salvador Dali del conservadurismo español sigue vigente. Dado que nuestro gobierno continúa negando sistemáticamente la realidad, existe la...
Robert and Edward Skidelsky, "Too much faith in... →
A short but excellent piece arguing for shorter working hours, progressive consumption taxes and other elements in the search for a good life:
These proposals are not free of problems. They are indications of direction, not blueprints for legislation. Whatever readers may think of them, they are at least an attempt to develop a collective vision of the good life. To instead simply blunder on...
Yanis Varoufakis, "Spain’s Blood Wedding,... →
Spain could, and ought to, have been the terrain on which to end the deadly embrace of public debt and banking losses that is bringing the Eurozone down. Europe, in its infinite idiocy, decided against such action. The differences between the Spanish and the Irish ‘bailouts’ are real but insignificant. They are real enough to encourage the Irish to question their own bailout’s terms and...
Michael Lewis, "Don't Eat Fortune's Cookie" →
A great commencement address pointing out the divorce between reward and merit.
I now live in Berkeley, California. A few years ago, just a few blocks from my home, a pair of researchers in the Cal psychology department staged an experiment. They began by grabbing students, as lab rats. Then they broke the students into teams, segregated by sex. Three men, or three women, per team. Then they put...
Compass, "Plan B: What Britain can learn from the ... →
The two vital factors that have enabled the Germany economic model two flourish are firstly, the German state knows that it inevitably has a vital role in determining the economic future of the country and does not shy away from this. Secondly, Germany has institutions and institutional arrangements which can embed and control capital to ensure it is harnessed to work in the interests of...
Nicholas Nassim Taleb, "Noise and Signal" →
The more frequently you look at data, the more noise you are disproportionally likely to get (rather than the valuable part called the signal); hence the higher the noise to signal ratio. And there is a confusion, that is not psychological at all, but inherent in the data itself. Say you look at information on a yearly basis, for stock prices or the fertilizer sales of your father-in-law’s...
Thad Williamson and Martin O'Neill,... →
Via Mark Thoma:
John Rawls is arguably the most important political philosopher of the past century. His theory of justice has set the agenda for debate in mainstream political philosophy for the past forty years, and has had an important influence in economics, law, sociology, and other disciplines. However, despite the importance and popularity of Rawls’s work, there is (rather surprisingly)...
Mark Weisbrot, "Europeans' economic future has... →
Mark Weisbrot comes out swinging in a great piece for the Guardian:
This is becoming more blatantly obvious here in Spain, where the government – run by the rightwing Popular party (PP) – shares the political agenda of the European authorities, perhaps even more than the IMF does. The PP government has taken advantage of the crisis to impose labour law changes that will make it easier for...
Canadian Labour Market and Skills Researcher... →
An interesting piece on inequality in Canada. A summary is here. Thanks to John Schmitt of CEPR for the link:
Even those who care less about inequality in itself may still have an interest in curbing its increase. While growth-oriented economic policies such as encouraging trade and deepening investment in new technology may provide the basis for economic success for future generations, we have...
