Monthly Archives: January 2012

Now it´s China´s turn to be badgered by the US. David Levey sends us three links (here, here and here) to related pieces. Barring his “fixed exchange rate/currency board” quirk, I agree with Steve Hank´s take: The United States has … Continue reading →

The “fiscal austerity” debate rages on. I think it is very unproductive and detracts from the discussion that should be going on, and that pertains to monetary policy. Nevertheless I decided to “butt in”. In the top part of the … Continue reading →

Ryan Avent is right: I was disappointed to see him offer praise to Bernanke, but he agrees that so far the Fed has been “weak”: IT SEEMS that a few people were surprised, and perhaps disappointed, to see me offer some praise to … Continue reading →

In addition to his “creditism”, Bernanke is a “communications addict”. Only it´s much simpler than he makes it out to be. Instead of publishing “betting boards” he could come out and credibly commit to a TARGET – preferably an NGDP … Continue reading →

The problem is that the only “austerity” we read about (here, here, here and here, for a small sample) is Fiscal Austerity. It takes a Market Monetarist like Scott Sumner to come out and speak against “Monetary Austerity”: Keynesians are … Continue reading →

Five months ago, following Bernanke´s speech at Jackson Hole, I quoted (my bolds): …This economic healing will take a while, and there may be setbacks along the way. Moreover, we will need to remain alert to risks to the recovery, … Continue reading →

Want to come out looking good? Shove the lady over the cliff and before she disappears into the abyss grab her hand and keep her dangling. That´s what Bernanke is praised for: Alan Blinder who was a governor and vice … Continue reading →

The preliminary output report for the last quarter of 2011 is out. A set of pictures permits complete understanding of the economy´s predicament and indicates the “natural monetary solution”. Take a guess as to the “solution”.

This was posted today at “Pileus”, who describe themselves as: “Pileus is a group of scholars who examine public policy and philosophy in light of our respective disciplines. We differ in many ways but share a commitment to liberty and … Continue reading →

This from John Quiggin: in the post-crisis environment, achievement of inflation targets has no longer promoted stable economic growth. Rather, low  inflation has been a drag on growth. But with inflation clearly under control, central bankers like former European Central Bank … Continue reading →