Archive for April, 2010
Charter Cities
An NPR interview with Stanford economist Paul Romer today caught my ear. He was talking about his “charter cities” project. The idea is to have rich well-governed countries create new cities on empty land either domestic or foreign by establishing the governing rules and institutions, then inviting people from poor, ill-governed countries to move there. ...Read more.
Can Invading a Small Third-World Country Stimulate the Economy?
Reviewing Reinhart and Rogoff’s This Time is Different in the May 13 issue of the NY Review of Books, Paul Krugman and Robin Wells assert that, “…history can offer some evidence on the extent to which Keynesian policies work as advertised.” After brief comments on work by the IMF and others, they proceed: “An even ...Read more.
Who's Afraid of Debt and Deficits?
We just posted material from the May/June, 2010 issue of Dollars & Sense, including Marty Wolfson’s article on myths of the deficit, and the table of contents of the issue. Enjoy! Here’s the editorial note for the issue: The Big Bad DeficitSarah Palin held a Tea Party on the Boston Common across from the Dollars ...Read more.
Follow Up on Poterba on Capital Markets
In my most recent blog post, about last night’s event at the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, I said I’d wanted to ask James Poterba, the President of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a follow-up question, and that I’d let readers know if I heard back from him by email. Well–I’m getting a ...Read more.
An Evening with Fancy Bankers
Chris Sturr, D&S co-editor, here. A few weeks ago I received an invitation to attend the “1,954th Stated Meeting” of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, on the topic of “Prospects for the Economy.” The featured speakers were supposed to be John S. Reed, former Chair and CEO of Citigroup and former chair of ...Read more.
Breaking News: SEC Sues Goldman Sachs
Just posted to the NYT website: U.S. Accuses Goldman Sachs of Fraud By LOUISE STORY and GRETCHEN MORGENSONPublished: April 16, 2010 Goldman Sachs, which emerged relatively unscathed from the financial crisis, was accused of securities fraud in a civil suit filed Friday by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which claims the bank created and sold ...Read more.
Several Items: Greece, Taxes, Bond Market
Today’s items: (1) Taxes: Since it’s tax day, it’s time to dispel some of the myths around taxation. For this purpose I like Mark Engler’s recent post over at Dissent‘s “Arguing the World” blog, busting the myth of “Tax Freedom Day.” Here is part of his post: Military spending accounts for over half of our ...Read more.
Several Items: Citigroup/stimulus, TBTF, Quakes
I will continue to post in digest form (multiple items) for a while—no luck on migrating the blog just yet. Soon, though. Here are this week’s items: (1) From Dean Baker (hat-tip to Mike Prokosch, who says, “CEPR outdoes itself here”): Profits on Citigroup Stock: Can They Be the Basis for Financing Stimulus? April 2010, ...Read more.
Steven Greenhouse at JP Forum This Thursday
This week at the Jamaica Plain Forum; hat-tip to Chuck C. Why We Can’t Get Ahead: Job Challenges for the American WorkerSteven Greenhouse of the New York TimesThursday 8 April 2010—7:00pm to 9:00pm Speaker: Steven Greenhouse, New York Times business and economics correspondent Since the recession’s peak, the U.S. unemployment rate has been hovering around ...Read more.
Several Items: Medicare, Haiti, Taxes, Tea Baggers
While Blogger continues to screw up our blog, and until we can migrate to WordPress, I may start posting multiple items in one post to save myself the trouble of all the work-arounds I need to do otherwise. Here are some items that I’ve been meaning to post this week: Our last post was about ...Read more.
