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Press ReleaseSocial Security Data Contradict Claims of “Ponzi Scheme” Fraud, New Paper from Levy Economics Institute Says
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BlogOperation Twist Has a Twist
According to Alan Blinder, writing in the Wall Street Journal, the Fed’s latest operation includes a detail (“the sleeper in the package”) that is aimed at boosting the housing market: For more than a year now, the Fed has been allowing its portfolio of agency debt (e.g., Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) and mortgage-backed securities [...] -
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How to Put More J in the AJA
Rania Antonopoulos, director of the Gender Equality and the Economy program at the Levy Institute, has a blog post up at Direct Care Alliance making the case for adding social care investments to the American Jobs Act, citing the large employment effects of direct job creation programs in early childhood education and long-term care for [...] -
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Forbes: The Smart Money Is Insane
Money quote from a recent Forbes article: “with the right parenting [psychopaths] can become successful stockbrokers instead of serial killers.” Also, a reminder that when we talk about how “the markets” are reacting to this or that, we’re talking about this guy: (hat tip to Thorvald Grung Moe, our visiting Norwegian central banker) -
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Where the Action Is on Financial Reform
In the case of a major reform like the Dodd-Frank Act, the attention spans of most journalists and opinion-mongers inevitably peak around the legislative battle, pronouncements are made in the aftermath, and then everyone moves on. But as articles like this remind us, so much of the action still remains to be played out, in [...] -
Working Paper No. 688
An Unblinking Glance at a National Catastrophe and the Potential Dissolution of the Eurozone
According to author and journalist C. J. Polychroniou, Greece was unfit to join the euro: its entry was orchestrated by fabricating the true state of the country’s fiscal condition, and its subsequent “growth performance” rested upon heavy state borrowing and European Union (EU) transfers. Moreover, the Greek economic crisis is also a political and moral […] -
Working Paper No. 688
Μια σταθερή ματιά σε μια εθνική καταστροφή και η πιθανή διάλυση της ευρωζώνης
Η Ελλάδα εντάχθηκε στην ευρωζώνη όχι μόνο με μαγειρεμένα στατιστικά αρχεία αλλά με μια οικονομία που ήταν ακατάλληλη για τις απαιτήσεις και τις προσδοκίες μιας ενοποιημένης αγοράς με ένα ενιαίο σκληρό νόμισμα. Επιπλέον, η χώρα έχει μια πολιτική τάξη που είναι διαβόητα διεφθαρμένη, μια δημόσια διοίκηση που ο τρόπος λειτουργίας του διακωμωδεί την αποτελσματικότητα και […] -
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Adam Smith Doesn’t Agree with You: Regulation Edition
It’s a time-honored tradition, and something of a mug’s game, to pick quotations from Adam Smith that clash with contemporary free market doctrine. But uses and misuses of Smith aside, this one happens to hit the conceptual nail on the head. Jared Bernstein, who is evidently working on a longer piece on debt, pulls this [...] -
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History of the Think Tank (or, Your Fish)
“A rollicking saga that involves all sorts of things not normally associated with think tanks – chickens, pirate radio, retired colonels, Jean Paul Sartre, Screaming Lord Sutch, and at its heart is a dramatic and brutal killing committed by one of the very men who helped bring about the resurgence of the free market in [...] -
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Commodities Bubble Reax
Wray responds to critics of yesterday’s post, and includes an excerpt from his policy brief on the topic (for a more condensed version, highlights of the brief are here). -
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The Biggest Speculative Bubble of All
(Cross posted from EconoMonitor) Back in fall of 2008 I wrote a piece examining what was then the biggest bubble in human history: http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/ppb_96.pdf. Say what? You thought that was tulip bulb mania? Or, maybe the NASDAQ hi-tech hysteria? No, folks, those were child’s play. From 2004 to 2008 we experienced the biggest commodities bubble [...] -
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Irving Fisher would have supported QE
If you haven’t already read Fisher’s 1933 article “The Debt-Deflation Theory of Great Depressions,” read it today. It contains his theory of booms and busts that later inspired Hyman Minsky to develop the Financial Instability Hypothesis (HM duly acknowledged his debt to Fisher in his 1986 book). Fisher’s article is unfortunately becoming more relevant by [...]