Monthly Archives: October 2011

Three random numbers related items I want to get on the blog before I forget. Beveridge Curve I am sadly becoming old and less cool, because I totally missed the rollout of the JOLTS – Job Openings and Labor Turnover … Continue reading →

Yglesias has an important post, Inequality and Stagnation: Tyler Cowen and Peter Thiel argue that median incomes are stagnating because we don’t have enough innovation….let me suggest that perhaps this is backwards. Perhaps we’re not having much innovation because our … Continue reading →

If you haven’t already, you should read Joe Nocera’s column “What the Costumes Reveal.” He includes a slideshow of six photos from a Halloween party last year at the foreclosure mill law firm Steven J. Baum, in which the associates … Continue reading →

Put on your monocle and top hat and pretend you are part of the 1% for a minute. Your first task is to write a set of legal codes about the collection of debt in this country, specifically student debt. … Continue reading →

As someone who has lived briefly in both the neighborhoods of Lake Merritt and Temescal in Oakland, I simply don’t know what to say about what happened in Oakland yesterday.  Here’s aerial footage of canisters exploding in the streets. I’m just … Continue reading →

Here’s a story from California about Occupy Wall Street teaming up with foreclosure defense that you should find encouraging (h/t Peter Frase): Rose Gudiel and her family were squatters in their own home. They had lost a two-year battle against … Continue reading →

The Franklin D. Roosevelt President Library and Museum has put scans up of several important documents that highlight FDR’s transition from trying to balancing the budget in the Great Depression to, after the crash of 1937, his ability to see that … Continue reading →

Peter Orzag has a column today in Bloomberg about a fascinating development, the decline in labor of income: As Kaldor’s Facts Fall, Occupy Wall Street Rises. In Economics 101, students learn that the share of national income received by labor stays … Continue reading →

Imagine an alien from Mars who was trained in basic macroeconomics landed on Earth. If they looked at economic indicators – unemployment high, inflation low, borrowing costs low, job openings low, off-trend economic growth, short-term interest rates at zero – … Continue reading →

Exciting news – Goldman Sachs economics team – lead by Jan Hatzius, who I am a fan of - is now arguing for a nominal GDP target as a way to get monetary policy working to get us to full employment.  Here … Continue reading →