The Second Coming of Keynes
Paul Krugman wants to be our savior. Moreover, he wants to be a specific kind of savior: a magus of the scientific age, a blackboard prophet. And the urban elite are convinced he is.
Keynesians Can’t Predict
If you take the trouble to interrogate a large number of economists about the economic future of the country you will find that an overwhelming majority argues in the following way: In about two years at the latest, rearmament will be completed and the amounts spent for this purpose will be negligible. At about the same time the pent-up demand for investments will be largely satisfied. The productive apparatus will be sufficiently enlarged, improved, and modernized to meet the needs of an increased population and all other reasonable requirements.
How Not to Bring Broadband to All
The inclusion of broadband access in the universal service obligation will not only fail to achieve extension of broadband access; it will also fall short of the extension that the market would provide.
The Shameless, Blame-Shifting, Minneapolis Fed
It is clear to me that either the Fed has learned almost nothing about 20th-century depressions or it is lying through its teeth in order to shift the blame for causing the current depression (or both).
A Social Function of the Wealthy
Since I loathe shopping, I tend to stay out of stores. So it should not be a shock to learn that, as I browsed a computer store this past weekend, I was surprised to find big-box computer monitors missing from the shelves. Instead of those once-ubiquitous monsters, I found an amazing selection of flat screen monitors of all types and shapes.
And to think, not too long ago, flat screen monitors were quite expensive — well beyond my penny-pitching ways. Now those monitors are a deal, really.
Ten Years Ago: An Interview on the Fed
About ten years ago, a reporter did an interview with me that appeared in the “Detroit News” about the Federal Reserve and Greenspan’s monetary policy.
This reporter has reprinted this interview on his blog today, pointing out my “prevision” in seeing where Fed monetary policy was leading: serious interest rate distortions, imbalances between savings and investment, and an inevitable economic correction.
New Poll Shows Reality Dawning
ABC news provides a helpful round up of the latest national poll on national politics, in PDF with plenty of detail, that shows a continued fall in approval ratings for the Obama administration, in nearly every area of domestic policy. These polls could make it more difficult for Obama and Congress to impose health-care socialism, so that’s something to celebrate; it is also striking that opposition to another stimulus package has grown to two thirds.
The Age of Technocide: RIM Pays Out Again Over Patents
I previously noted that NTP used the patent system to wring over $600M out of RIM, the manufacturer of the Blackberry smartphone. As noted by Mike Masnick, now RIM has coughed up another quarter billion dollars to another company, Visto (”coincidentally” a licensee of NTP). A quarter billion dollars--everyone yawns. Masnick asks, why did NTP have to pay Visto?
Vacant Apartments in New York City
We are shocked, shocked, to read in Gotham Gazette: Unlocking the Apartment ‘Warehouse’
Hangover Theory: How Paul Krugman Has Misconceived Austrian Theory
Paul Krugman is an eminent economist, but he reveals a woefully inadequate understanding of Austrian business-cycle theory. Even a Keynesian can surely grasp the rudiments of the theory.
