We Get Results, Japan Edition by Krugman

Abenomics Takes Off: Can Japan Un-Doom Itself? by Matt O'Brian

Roger Ebert Hails Human Existence as a Triumph

(via DeLong)

The Urge to Purge by Krugman

The bad news is that sin sells. Although the Mellonites have, as I said, been wrong about everything, the notion of macroeconomics as morality play has a visceral appeal that’s hard to fight. Disguise it with a bit of political cross-dressing, and even liberals can fall for it.

Noah Smith admits he was wrong. 

Scott Sumner pretends he wasn't skeptical about Abe.

Janet Yellen: A Keynesian Woman at the Fed by John Cassidy

With Ben Bernanke’s term as chairman of the Federal Reserve up at the end of January, 2014, the speculation about the identity of his successor is starting in earnest. Two recent articles in The Economist and at the Washington Post’s Wonkblog have both made Janet Yellen, who is currently Bernanke’s number two on the Fed’s board of governors, the firm favorite for the job. Slate’s Matt Yglesias reckons her accession isn’t even in doubt, saying bluntly, “it’ll be Janet Yellen.”

(via Thoma)

Only God Forgives trailer. Ryan Gosling and Nicholas Winding Refn team up again. I recently saw Drive once again this time on video and it was just as good.

Japan Initiates a Bold Bid to End Years of Falling Prices

In a statement detailing the new measures, the central bank said it would buy longer-term government bonds, lengthening the average maturity of its holdings to seven years from three years and expanding Japan’s monetary base to ¥270 trillion by March 2015. Under that plan, the bank will buy ¥7 trillion of bonds each month, equivalent to over 1 percent of its gross domestic product — almost twice the pace of the U.S. Federal Reserve.

BOJ's Kuroda Vows To Use "Every Means Available" To Fight Deflation by Yglesias

I'm starting to come around to Baker's way of thinking. Given our lost decade, in hindsight, we should have purged the system.

Robert Samuelson Calls Me Nobody by Dean Baker.

I disagreed with Krugman's calls for temporary nationalization of banks given the fragile state of the economy at the time, but turns out he was exactly right as usual. Turns out supposedly Obama wanted to nationalize Citigroup but Geithner slow-walked it into not happening. Big mistake.

My guess is that next time there won't be bailouts. The Democrats who voted for TARP were bait-and-switched over mortgage loan forgiveness. Geithner again, and Summers. Probably reacting to the original Teabagger Rick Santelli's rant.

AV Club reviews "Ghost" from Justified. 

Cranky Old Men by Krugman

Actually, I was disappointed in Stockman’s piece. I thought there would be some kind of real argument, some presentation, however tendentious, of evidence. Instead it’s just a series of gee-whiz, context- and model-free numbers embedded in a rant — and not even an interesting rant. It’s cranky old man stuff, the kind of thing you get from people who read Investors Business Daily, listen to Rush Limbaugh, and maybe, if they’re unusually teched up, get investment advice from Zero Hedge. 

Sad.

Emphasis added.

Deep thoughts from Sansa, "Because the truth is always either terrible or boring."

AV Club reviews "Valar Dohaeris" (for experts) from Game of Thrones

AV Club reviews "Valar Dohaeris" (for newbies) from Game of Thrones

AV Club reviews "Welcome to the Tombs" from The Walking Dead

Print Money. Mail Everybody a Check: Fight unemployment by giving money directly to American families. by Yglesias

Financing the Deficit (More Feldstein) by Krugman

Now, this is almost an accounting identity, so by itself the figure doesn’t tell you which side is driving the action. But we know the answer to that question from other evidence. For one thing, we know that most of that surge in the private sector surplus reflects the collapse of the housing bubble, and that most of the surge in the public deficit reflected automatic stabilizers. For another, we know that if government deficits were crowding out private spending, we should have seen rising interest rates; what we actually saw was falling rates. 

So there isn’t any puzzle here, except the puzzle of people who are puzzled. I really don’t understand how Marty Feldstein can look at these facts and conclude that the only way to explain low interest rates is to imagine that the Fed is imposing massive market distortions.