By Marshall Auerback, an investment strategist who writes for the New Deal 2.0. A history of failed attempts to introduce universal health insurance has left us with a system in which the government pays directly or indirectly for more than half of the nation’s health care, but the actual delivery both of insurance and of […]
Read more...By George Washington of Washington’s Blog. Unemployment is disastrous on both the individual and societal level. Individuals who look for work but can’t find it are miserable. Indeed, most people who lose their job are unprepared for their circumstances.[1] On the national level, high unemployment is both cause and effect concerning other problems with the […]
Read more...Submitted by Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns. I have had pretty much no computer access where I am so I apologize for not getting into the debate in the comments from my last post on healthcare. I wrote this article as an update to that post. The opinions here reflect only my view and have […]
Read more...Submitted by Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns. Below is a post I recently wrote at Credit Writedowns. I hope you find this in line with Marshall Auerback’s recent post on the same issue. Here I am looking at things from a purely political standpoint – not necessarily a defense of one position or another on […]
Read more...As the economy limps along, with jobs still falling (despite keen efforts to call a turn, and with the figures a bit more dodgy if you look under the hood), more and more overindebted and underemployed citizens are out on the street. Reports of tent encampments or parking lots with cars that serve as shelter […]
Read more...Is the leopard changing its spots? First we have the Wall Street Journal, of all places, lambasting Goldman, while incredibly, the Washington Post springs to its defense. If that isn’t bizarre enough, today we have the Wall Street Journal, which along with just about every mainstream media outlet, likes to inveigh about coming Social Security […]
Read more...Nicholas Nassim Taleb and Mark Spitznagel have a provocative comment up at the Financial Time today, In some ways, it is isn’t surprising for those familiar with his work on risk and uncertainty. On the other hand, it is an eye opener to see what an internally consistent, reasonably comprehensive solution to our mess looks […]
Read more...A paradox arises to the extent that it is true that the market is dependent on normative underpinning (to provide the pre-contractural foundations such as trust, cooperation, and honesty) which all contractural relations require: The more people accept the neoclasical paradigm as a guide for their behavior, the more the ability to sustain a market […]
Read more...In America, the 1990 census showed a marked decrease in childbearing. 25% of the women between 30 and 34 were childless, while the comparable figure in 1976 was 16%. By 1985, the birthrate expected per average woman over her lifetime had fallen to 1.8, slightly below Europe’s level and below the “replacement rate”, the level […]
Read more...Steve Waldman offers a radical and unconventional cure to our financial mess. Stop lending. Waldman is deadly serious and thinks our attachment to lending is based on dangerously flawed premises: I am glad that the banks, for all the hundreds of billions of dollars we are giving them, are not lending. That is not because […]
Read more...Why is it that economics is a Teflon discipline, seemingly unable to admit or recognize its errors? Economic policies in the US and most advanced economies are to a significant degree devised by economists. They also serve as policy advocates, and are regularly quoted in the business and political media and contribute regularly to op-ed […]
Read more...Princeton economics professor Alan Blinder’s article in today’s New York Times provides a useful summary of a new book by a Princeton colleague, Larry Bartels, which finds consistent differences in economic performance and income inequality trends between Democratic and Republican administrations. From the New York Times: Many Americans know that there are characteristic policy differences […]
Read more...This program to assist overextended homeowners has only just begun, so it is way to early to say whether it will succeed, but it is an improved version of Dean Baker’s “own to rent” idea. Note that one of the elements, having a new bank buy the original lender out at the 70% of mortgage […]
Read more...Ken Funnell at Bank Lawyer’s Blog tells us that Ohio is about to put legislation into effect that will kill payday lending: The new Ohio law would limit borrowers to four short-term loans a year and cap annual interest rates at 28 percent. The bill also would limit loan amounts to $500 per loan, or […]
Read more...An odd set of voices is beginning to question the wisdom of America’s extraordinarily generous subsidies to homeowners. Paul Krugman once remarked that American like to consume houses, while the French prefer to consume vacations, but we shouldn’t overlook the role of incentives in those choices. At the Milken Institute Global Conference, a true disciple […]
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