Paul Krugman has an easy answer for those that ask why people are pessimistic about the economy: the dastardly Republicans have fooled everyone. There are good reasons for the pessimism that we shouldn’t ignore, however.
Mark explains why the recent "all-time highs"—even "new highs"—are an ambiguous signal about the future.
Ezra Klein of the New York Times despairs of government’s impotence in building vast projects from energy grids to high-speed railways. He believes granting government absolute power is the answer.
According to a Brown University professor, ExxonMobil threatens our democratic republic by purchasing another company. The totalitarian woke atmosphere in American higher education is the real threat.
One of the biggest and most pervasive myths in modern-day economics is the myth of the omnipotence of the Federal Reserve.
Advocates of unbacked paper money claim that theirs is the “civilized” choice, as opposed to gold, or what Keynes called “that barbarous relic.” These inflationists, however, are the ones wrecking civilization as we have known it.
Data on employed persons, wages, and other measures point to trouble ahead in an economy already strained by growing bankruptcies, mounting debts, and disappearing savings.
The new problem we now face arises from the fact that huge deficits are only manageable so long as interest rates remain very, very low.
Because borrowing from the Fed continues to reach new highs, inflation is unlikely to drop as fast as M2 would indicate, and excess money growth continues to generate problems in the economy with few improvements as it just keeps zombie financial entities alive.
Mark looks at the implications of famed investor Jim Chanos shutting down his hedge fund which specialized in shorting stocks.
