Economic policy reports, blog postings, and media stories of interest:
In a video discussion with the Institute for New Economic Thinking, economist Barry Eichengreen of UC-Berkeley explains why economists need to pay attention to history.
From an article in The New York Review of Books written by Elizabeth Drew …
In the end, the President had made the Republicans look bad, but what did he get for it? He ended up agreeing to new restrictions that will hamstring his policies for as long as he serves in office. His own actions will have led to new laws that forbid him to borrow money for any government policy—unless, at some time, he goes out and campaigns hard for raising taxes in any form. His actions so far shed light on how likely that is.
…
This country’s economy is beset with a number of new difficulties, among them that recovery from the last recession remains more elusive than was generally expected, while the US is confronting a variety of international economic instabilities, especially the large debts and possible default of several countries in the eurozone, bringing on unpopular austerity measures. Recent experience with what should have been a simple matter of raising the debt ceiling, normally done with no difficulty, is reason for deep unease about our political system’s ability to deal with such challenges.
Economic policy reports, blog postings, and media stories of interest:
In the video interview below, Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism argues that the U.S. debt crisis is a manufactured one intended to force cuts to entitlement programs. And, she manages to work in a reference to Blazing Saddles in the process.
Email Sign-Up | 
RSS Feed
