Showing posts with label The Left. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Left. Show all posts
Monday, October 06, 2014
Sunday, October 05, 2014
Brazil
Why Dilma Rousseff Could Win Brazil’s Presidential Election by Mark Weisbrot
"This return to growth, plus the government’s use of increased revenues to boost social spending, has reduced Brazil’s poverty rate by 55 percent and extreme poverty by 65 percent. For those in extreme poverty, the government’s internationally renowned conditional cash transfer program (Bolsa Familia) provided 60 percent of their income in 2011, up from 10 percent in 2003. A hefty increase in the minimum wage – 84 percent since 2003 after adjusting for inflation – also helped quite a bit.
Unemployment has fallen to a record low of 4.9 percent; it was 12.3 percent when Lula da Silva took office in 2003. The quality of jobs has also increased: the percentage of workers stuck in the informal sector of the economy shrank from 22 to 13 percent."
Thursday, October 02, 2014
and Democrats lose the Senate
What fuckers.
As Fed Retreats From Stimulus, Central Banks Overseas Expand Theirs by BINYAMIN APPELBAUM, JACK EWING and NEIL GOUGH
WASHINGTON — As the growth of the United States economy outstrips the rest of the developed world, American policy makers are allowing Europe, Japan and even China to seek a little more prosperity — at the expense of Americans.
The Obama administration and the Federal Reserve have watched quietly in recent years as foreign governments and central banks have chipped away at the dollar value of their currencies, strengthening their export industries in the hope of stimulating their economies.
The trend is likely to intensify over the next year as the Fed retreats from its own stimulus campaign while the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan expand their efforts. Mario Draghi, the head of the European Central Bank, said on Thursday that it would begin a new round of bond purchases this month.
The United States has long argued that markets should determine the value of currencies and criticized nations that try to manipulate exchange rates. The current silence reflects both the simple reality that the American economy needs less help than the rest of the developed world and the judgment of officials that the United States would benefit greatly from stronger global growth. That, they say, would be true even if, in the short term, it makes the country’s goods a little harder to sell and jobs a little harder to find.
You’re seeing American officials turn a blind eye to Mario Draghi talking down the euro, and turn a blind eye to interventions by the Chinese, because in both cases they’re making the judgment that having a stabilized situation and decent growth prospects in these countries is far more important,” said Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “I tend to agree with that.”
American leaders have embraced and celebrated a strong dollar as evidence of a strong economy. It lets Americans buy more foreign goods and borrow more cheaply from foreign countries. It also may draw foreign investors to American financial markets, supporting the rise of asset prices.
But the rise of the dollar carries large risks, too. It makes it harder for American companies to sell goods and services. It may be contributing to the sluggish pace of domestic inflation. And some economists warn that letting the dollar rise is not a sustainable method of encouraging growth.
“A strong dollar, fueled by higher U.S. interest rates, will likely expose vulnerabilities in other parts of the world,” Stephen King, chief global economist at HSBC, wrote in a research note on Thursday. “Latin American countries already flirting with recession would certainly not welcome a tightening of U.S. monetary conditions.” Some economists said the United States should seek to limit the dollar’s rise through diplomacy and policy, and that the Fed should seek to limit its divergence from other central banks by extending its stimulus campaign.
A recent report by the Bank for International Settlements, essentially the bank for central banks, also questioned the global benefits of a stronger dollar, predicting it would tighten financial conditions because foreign banks rely heavily on dollar funding.
Continue reading the main story
But Stephen Cecchetti, a professor at Brandeis University, said the world had a strong interest in Europe’s health. “It’s going to create some instability, but the alternative is worse,” said Mr. Cecchetti, former chief economist of the Bank for International Settlements. “You don’t want to be around if there’s a real depression in Europe.”
The central bank still has not fully deployed the arsenal of a modern central bank to improve growth in Europe. It has refrained from the large-scale purchases of government debt undertaken by the Fed, the Bank of Japan and the Bank of England.
But in recent months it has sought to push down the value of the euro through a variety of measures. In September, the central bank offered loans that were practically interest-free to commercial banks that promised to lend the money to businesses and consumers.
On Thursday, after a board meeting Naples, Italy, the central bank outlined a two-year plan to buy private sector assets, including bank loans packaged into securities. “These purchases will have a sizable impact,” Mr. Draghi said at a news conference after the meeting.
One euro, which bought $1.39 in April, bought only $1.26 at the end of September. “We needed to bring the euro down and we still need to bring the euro down,” Christian Noyer, a central bank board member from France, said in a recent interview with the French broadcaster Radio 1.
While such efforts are usually aimed at increasing exports, the central bank is focused on imports, too. A weaker euro raises the price of imported fuel and other products, which could help budge inflation. Prices in the eurozone last month increased at an annualized rate of just 0.3 percent, far below the 2 percent pace the central bank and other major central banks in the developed world regard as best for sustainable growth.
“This is a currency war where stealing inflation rather than growth is the goal,” economists at the British bank HSBC wrote in a report published on Wednesday. The question, they said, “is whether the U.S. economy can generate sufficient inflation internally to tolerate the deflationary impact of a stronger dollar.”
So far, American officials primarily seem frustrated that the European Central Bank continues to act slowly. James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, last year became the rare official to call publicly for stronger action when he told an audience in Frankfurt that the central bank should buy government bonds.
Another question is whether the programs will provide a sufficient jolt. A similar lending program started by the Bank of England in 2012 has not reversed the decline in small-business lending in that country.
“Nobody’s hiring, nobody’s investing, nobody’s spending,” said Stefano Micossi, the director general of Assonime, an Italian business group. “There is no demand for credit. The system is not constrained by the funding side. The banks are awash in liquidity.”
Japan, which has been grappling with the problems confronting Europe for more than two decades, is also seeking growth through currency moves. Under the “Abenomics” stimulus campaign that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe began in early 2013, the Bank of Japan has agreed to double the money supply, and the price of yen in dollars has dropped by about 24 percent.
The results have not met expectations. Japan’s trade deficit has increased while inflation remains weak. The Japanese economy shrank by 7.1 percent in the second quarter after a sales tax increase.
The country’s struggles may show the limits of devaluation, according to Mr. Posen of the Peterson Institute. He noted that demand was less sensitive to small changes in price for the kinds of high-end goods that dominate the exports of Japan and other developed countries.
The government remains publicly committed to its stimulus campaign. But some analysts see signs of tension between the head of the bank, Haruhiko Kuroda, and politicians who are wary that the rise in import prices will provoke consumer resistance.
“Kuroda is much more powerful than other board members for sure, but not necessarily than politicians,” said Hiromichi Shirakawa, Japan economist at Credit Suisse in Tokyo and a former central bank official. “This is scary as the markets have been expecting additional easing by the bank within a couple of months.”
China’s economic rise was built on the suppression of its currency to support cheap exports at the expense of domestic consumption. Then, beginning in 2010, China let the renminbi rise about 20 percent against the dollar as part of its effort to encourage a transition away from export-led growth. But this year, with the economy growing at the slowest pace in more than a decade, China once again pressed down on the renminbi. Its value has fallen about 2 percent against the dollar so far this year.
“It was a way to stimulate the economy without resorting to full blown credit and investment-driven stimulus,” said Diana Choyleva, the head of macroeconomic research at Lombard Street Research in London.
While that small change has prompted little criticism from the United States, the looming question is whether China will continue.
During the financial crisis, China’s government-controlled banking system pumped money into the economy, doubling its assets over a five-year period. Many companies and local governments are now struggling to repay those debts, and authorities are reluctant to treat the pain with another major burst of lending.
Yu Yongding, a senior fellow of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing and a former member of the central bank’s monetary policy committee, said it was imperative for the P.B.O.C. not to blink.
“China needs to adjust its economic structure urgently,” Mr. Yu said. “The combination of the high leverage ratio, high financing costs and low profitability is a serious threat to China’s financial stability.”
But Mr. Yu said the bank might be required to take new steps if the outlook darkened. Andrew Colquhoun, head of Asia-Pacific sovereign ratings at Fitch in Hong Kong, said further devaluation had obvious attractions. Noting the appreciation of the currency since 2010, Mr. Colquhoun said, “The authorities might think they could give some of that back through the renminbi in the event consumption faltered.”
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
economic debate
Influencing the Debate from Outside the Mainstream: Keep it Simple by Dean Baker
Ultimately what killed the Boskin Commission report was the refusal of Richard Gephardt, the leader of the Democrats in the House to go along with the plan.[6] His opposition was key, because Gephardt was the most credible challenger at the time to then Vice-President Al Gore for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2000. There was no better issue that Gephardt could have been given in the Democratic primaries than a cut in Social Security benefits. Gephardt could point to Gore as the person who cut your Social Security benefits, while he was the guy who tried to stop him.
Without Gephardt’s buy in, Clinton was not about to go forward. It also helped that the stock bubble and faster than projected growth led the deficit to fall much more than had been projected. It is worth noting that in spite of the near unanimity of the leading lights in the economics profession on the existence of a large bias in the CPI, the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not take steps to correct most of the bias identified by the Boskin Commission. The Government Accountability Office surveyed the four surviving members of the Boskin Commission in 2000. (Zvi Grilliches had died the prior year.) In their assessment, more than 0.8 percentage points of the bias they identified in the CPI remained even after BLS had made a series of changes in the index.[7] Yet few economists take account of this bias in their work or in discussions of economics policy....
This was a simple way to show the 7.0 percent assumption was nonsense. Either price to earnings ratios would have to rise into the hundreds or it would be necessary to have stories of the whole corporate sector paying out more than their 100 percent of their after-tax profits in dividends. No self-respecting economist wanted to be associated with either of these positions.
We first posted this challenge on our website, however we were already in the early days of the blogosphere. Many progressive econ bloggers soon picked it up. This led to howls of anguish and outrage by conservatives. Some threw in the towel and acknowledged that it could not be done. Others wanted to change the assumptions so that we had more rapid GDP growth or a shift in income from wages to profits.
Finally Paul Krugman blasted the test into the national debate with a column in early February.[11] This exposed the fact that the privatizers were essentially just making up numbers. By showing there was no pot of gold in the private accounts, we were able to take the money out of it for typical workers. This drove home the point that there was no real potential for gain with privatization along the lines being proposed, just additional risk. This helped prevent the privatization plan from gaining any momentum. By the spring, most Republican members of Congress were running away from privatization as fast as they could.
Sunday, September 07, 2014
the rich and unemployment
Interest Rates and the 1 Percent by Chris Dillow
...
I agree with Steve that the rich hate inflation not least because it creates uncertainty. (There's also the historical point that the inflationary 70s also saw the nadir of the fortunes of the 1%: this might be just coincidence, but why risk it?)
This alone creates a bias to tighten. What amplifies this bias is that the rich can tolerate mass unemployment. Nick's parallel with the 1930s is, I think, irrelevant. Back in the 30s, mass unemployment was a threat to the rich because workers could see a plausible alternative to the existing order in communism. Today, by contrast, there are no big feasible alternatives to capitalism and so unemployment is not a political danger - which means it is more tolerable.
This answers Peter's question: why has the Keynesian coalition vanished from modern politics? It's because it is no longer politically necessary. It was not Keynes who convinced capitalists of the need for full employment but Lenin."
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Friday, August 22, 2014
the rich and exclusiveness
#FF: THE BEST OF DANIEL DAVIES: OVER AT EQUITABLE GROWTH: FRIDAY FOCUS FOR AUGUST 22, 2014 by Delong
(See the Dorothy Parker quote at the top of the blog.)
Daniel Davies: No Riff-Raff: "Entering into the Brad DeLong Eat The Rich Controversy...
...I offer this observation:
If it is not the case "that the rich are spiteful--that they enjoy the envy of the poor", then why is the word "exclusive" so popular in the marketing material for hotels, nightclubs, holiday resorts and residential property developments. "Exclusive" is probably these days an advertising man's synonym for "nice", but it also has a clear and specific literal meaning. It means that the hotel, nightclub, resort etc is providing a bundled service; partly, the provision of a normal hotel or nightclub, and partly the service of excluding a segment of the population from that service. One pays extra to go to a health club whose swimming pool is not polluted by the greasy, hairy polloi.
The reason that this service is valuable is that those who consume it get utility from a) dividing society into two groups, rich and poor, b) creating institutions which physically and socially segregate these two groups and c) them being in the "rich" group. Nobody would apply for membership of Bouji's or the Bucks if it was just a matter of waiting your turn and paying your fee. This would completely defeat the point of the exercise and destroy the value proposition. The point is that in order to attract a better class of customer, you have to keep the riff-raff out. Basil Fawlty understood this; why doesn't the blogosphere?
(See the Dorothy Parker quote at the top of the blog.)
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Geitnerism
OVER AT EQUITABLE GROWTH: COMMENT ON: AYAKO SAIKI AND JON FROST: "HOW DOES UNCONVENTIONAL MONETARY POLICY AFFECT INEQUALITY? EVIDENCE FROM JAPAN" by DeLong
Over at Equitable Growth: Comment on: Ayako Saiki and Jon Frost: "How Does Unconventional Monetary Policy Affect Inequality? Evidence from Japan"
I want to make three big points: READ MOAR
Figuring out what we expect QE to mean for income and wealth inequality is difficult because we are not sure what QE is supposed to do for the macroeconomy. Is it a way of credibly committing to lower nominal interest and higher inflation rates in the long run by goosing the monetary base at the zero lower bound? Is it a way of reducing the supply of assets subject to risk and thus reducing the risk premium? If the first, it is the government imposing--relative to the baseline--a transfer from those who are going to save, who are going to cut their spending below their income and shift purchasing power into the further future, and to those who are going to borrow and to those who have saved in the past. If the second, it is the government imposing--relative to the baseline--a transfer from those who are going to supply risk-bearing services to those who will lay off risks into the future and those who have already committed to bearing risk in the past. In either case, it is bound to be the rich today who have born risk in the past (and been lucky) or who have saved in the past. So today's inequality should, we think, rise. It is nice to see that it is true--and it is interesting that the effects look to be so large...I think it's helpful to distinguis DeLong as a "soft" neoliberal from Geithner who is a "strong" neoliberal. He even had the Treasury working at cross purposes with the Fed over QE. Was this in his book? I hope Bernanke will discuss it.
Looking forward, however, QE seems to be a piece of what Keynes called the euthanasia of the rentier--or of the risk-bearer. Wealthholders who are going to stay influential wealthholders must reinvest at rate n+g, so their true free cash is only r-n-g. What if they spend more? Keynes thought that there was a social compact: if the rich do not accumulate--if they spend more than r-n-g--then the political process will soon take their wealth away. Thus a world of QE is a world in which the rich have extremely high wealth levels, yet surprisingly little weight, given their wealth, on consumption patterns. There is high wealth inequality. And there is very high income inequality along the transition path as asset prices attain their new equilibrium levels. But less spending inequality.
The Geithner view of the world: monetary policy is unreliable witchcraft, fiscal policy is "sugar" that makes you feel really good for four hours before you drop into a diabetic coma, the only source of durable prosperity is to reinforce business and financial prosperity by giving them the returns they think they deserve--and then a little more. I parody. But this is the dominant view in the North Atlantic, at least. Basically, the bankers and investors and CEOs have us by the plums. If QE reinforces business confidence, it is worth doing in spite of its inequality effects. If, on the other hand, QE scares our upper class by (a) making them fear that asset prices are unsustainably high and will crash, and (b) making them fear that their future deals will have to squeeze returns out of an eyedropper, then the inequality effects are yet another reason to exit as fast as possible. Now I am not a believer in Geithnerism. But many people are. And it is certainly a live analytical position...
Monday, August 18, 2014
Dan Davies
Evening Must-Read: Daniel Davies: D-squared Digest–FOR Bigger Pies and Shorter Hours and AGAINST More-or-Less Everything Else by DeLong
Daniel Davies has unlocked his weblog. Plus: Daniel–Crooked Timber: “I’ve had a life event recently. As of today (I’m posting this from the WiFi at Geneva airport) and for the next year, I am doing less of the stockbroking, and more of the travelling round the world with my family…” | And: “The single most sensible thing said in political philosophy in the twentieth century was JK Galbraith’s aphorism……that the quest of conservative thought throughout the ages has been ‘the search for a higher moral justification for selfishness’. Some rightwingers are not hypocrites because they admit that their basic moral principle is ‘what I have, I keep’. Some rightwingers are hypocrites because they pretend that ‘what I have, I keep’ is always and everywhere the best way to express a general unparticularised love for all sentient things. Then there are the tricky cases where the rightwingers happen to be on the right side because we haven’t yet discovered a better form of social organisation than private property for solving several important classes of optimisation problem….
Philosophies of economic policymaking - a comment which growed by Daniel DaviesHypocrisy doesn’t really enter into the equation with rightwing politics; you don’t (or shouldn’t) get any extra points for being sincere about being selfish. So where does that leave our students? Well, they’re young. They’re most likely insecure. They don’t actually have a lot, and it’s hardly surprising that they’re a bit precious about what they have…. People in general seem to be horribly uncomfortable with the idea that, by the standards they use to judge political situations, they themselves don’t come out as moral heroes. At base, this is a fairly childish and decidedly illiberal attitude; childish because it demands a sort of moral perfection which everyone intellectually knows can’t exist outside fairy stories (unless you count the way that parents appear to their children) and illiberal because it suggests that you’re only prepared to have normal social interactions with people who pass your own personal moral examination…
...And (I think I'm making my own position clear here) I think this is why Friedmanism fails. Because actually, the buck does have to stop somewhere, and pretending that you can manage a complex system via a simple rule is basically impossible (it falls foul of Stafford Beer's Principle Of Sufficient Variability). In practice, in a system based on a Taylor Rule, an Evans Rule or even an NGDP target, the buck stops with whoever it is that is responsible for maintaining the model which generates the forecasts of the control parameter. And this person is always going to deny that he's making activist policy and claim that he's a technocrat who simply goes where the data takes him. Friedmanism in economic policy, in the general sense I'm talking about here, is nothing more nor less than a distributed responsibility avoidance system.
Chomskyites
WEEKEND READING: MCSWEENEY’S INTERNET TENDENCY: UNUSED AUDIO COMMENTARY BY HOWARD ZINN AND NOAM CHOMSKY, RECORDED SUMMER 2002 FOR THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING (PLATINUM SERIES EXTENDED EDITION) DVD. PART ONE.
As is usually the case, the followers are worse than the man himself. The McSweeney writers probably have friend or acquaintances who are Chomskyites.
Tuesday, August 05, 2014
Olivia Wilde
Wilde referenced The Leopard last night on Letterman which was cool. She's also casually sex positive which is nice, telling David how the Italians are more comfortable with nudity. They were discussing her nude scene in her upcoming film which was shot in Italy. Talk about a plug!
Whenever I see her I always think of her uncle Alexander Cockburn. As a clueless American from the suburbs I didn't know much about the European left (or even the American left) so it was interesting to discover that England had class traitors like Cockburn and his father who was Communist royalty. Claude Cockburn was also literary, being the second cousin, once removed, of novelists Alec Waugh and Evelyn Waugh.
Cockburn moved to Northern California early on, and was prescient about environmentalism (climate change) and marijuana legalization. In person I found him to be extremely courteous, polite and hyper-articulate if a little strange and alien (it might have just been how his manners and accent struck a provincial Mid-westerner). His encyclopedic knowledge was insane but he always appeared to be wanting to be a regular guy and sympathized with conservative, members of the lower classes like gun nuts. Obviously many people knew him better and have more accurate impressions them me.
Also, I once gave Rick Perlstein a ride in my car.
Whenever I see her I always think of her uncle Alexander Cockburn. As a clueless American from the suburbs I didn't know much about the European left (or even the American left) so it was interesting to discover that England had class traitors like Cockburn and his father who was Communist royalty. Claude Cockburn was also literary, being the second cousin, once removed, of novelists Alec Waugh and Evelyn Waugh.
Cockburn moved to Northern California early on, and was prescient about environmentalism (climate change) and marijuana legalization. In person I found him to be extremely courteous, polite and hyper-articulate if a little strange and alien (it might have just been how his manners and accent struck a provincial Mid-westerner). His encyclopedic knowledge was insane but he always appeared to be wanting to be a regular guy and sympathized with conservative, members of the lower classes like gun nuts. Obviously many people knew him better and have more accurate impressions them me.
Also, I once gave Rick Perlstein a ride in my car.
Friday, August 01, 2014
douchebag
The center-left, as represented by people like Krugman and DeLong, have not come forward with an alternative transformative agenda, but have instead preached a narrow and fundamentally conservative vision of countercyclical re-stabilization and temporary demand stimulation, apparently with no greater end in sight than a kind of "return to normalcy". Krugman has resolutely resisted calls to understand the crisis of 2007/8 as only one symptom of a fundamentally sick, unjust, oppressive and extractive system. He has insisted that structural transformation is not necessary, and that we should focus like a laser beam on cyclical matters. Krugman is not associated in the public mind, insofar as I can tell, with any particular program of national renewal, restructuring or transformative change.
...
All these kinds of changes, however, terrify the average New York Times reader or elite professional in academia or elsewhere. Their affluence is, in the end, constructed in great part out of the meagerly-recompensed labor of their social subordinates. Those opportunities have been lost. Mission accomplished for the center-left.
Lately, Krugman has lately turned media space into an ongoing effort to enhance the social prestige of economists, and to make sure everyone knows that Paul Krugman in particular has always been right about everything. It’s become quite boring and obtuse. Ultimately, Krugman has no interesting ideas, and seems to revel in his hidebound liberal conservatism. Then he wonders why he can’t get enough people to pay attention to him.
Honestly, if I were staffing a new administration I think I might not hire a single economist. Their “science” amounts to a wall of sophistic conservative blather and apologetics for an ancien regime of hierarchy and exploitation. They intimidate otherwise well-meaning people into a cowed and slavish deference to their rambling pseudo-explanations, their mathematical reconstructions of fantasy worlds and their reification of cruelty and oppression into some kind of natural order.
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
I don't think so.
Inflation Hawks Have Been Wrong for Years. Should We Listen to Them Now? by Danny Vinik
Richard Fisher:
Richard Fisher, the president of the Dallas Federal Reserve, has an op-ed in Monday’s Wall Street Journal warning that the Fed’s current policy risks sparking high inflation. “Given the rapidly improving employment picture, developments on the inflationary front and my own background as a banker and investment and hedge fund manager,” Fisher writes, “I am increasingly at odds with some of my respected colleagues at the policy table of the Federal Reserve as well as with the thinking of many notable economists.”
This isn't the first time Fisher has been at odds with his colleagues. When the Fed undertook “Operation Twist” in 2011, Fisher was one of three members of the Federal Open Market Committee—the committee that decides Fed policy—to dissent. He's also been the committee’s staunchest inflation hawk, and Monday’s op-ed was just the latest of many warnings Fisher has issued over the past few years about supposed forthcoming inflation. Here are five examples since 2011:
...
Richard Fisher:
"I'd rather see the Texification of the United States than the Californification. California's a beautiful place. I was born there, and I go out there often."Krugman:
How it all turns out is anyone’s guess — maybe we eventually see a California scenario on a national basis, with the growing diversity of the electorate and the evident madness of the right delivering an overwhelming Democratic majority; maybe we see some exogenous event tip the balance back to the GOP despite what looks like a trend the other way. But what I don’t think we’ll see, even if there’s a Clinton in the White House, is another Clinton era in which liberalism is afraid to take a stand.
Friday, July 25, 2014
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Friday, July 04, 2014
Obummer (thanks Obama!)
Obama's greatest failure: The rapidly falling deficit by Ryan Cooper
Ever since 2009, when the recession and the stimulus package pushed the annual budget deficit to a peak of nearly $1.5 trillion, it has been falling steadily. Last year it came in at$680 billion; this year it is projected to total $492 billion.
This is an absolute disaster. It is President Obama's single greatest failure, representing the fact that he, and the rest of the American government, did not adequately respond to the Great Recession. It means that millions of Americans were kept out of work, that trillions in potential output was flushed down the toilet, and that the American economy was very seriously damaged, probably permanently, for no reason at all.
Simply keeping government employment on the Bush-era course would have directly created 1.5 million more jobs, and hundreds of thousands more through the multiplier effect, in which jobs beget jobs through increased consumer spending. Another stimulus would have had us at full employment years ago (and possibly would have even paid for itself in fiscal terms).
Instead, we've slashed spending and fired hundreds of thousands of government workers.
Of course, the situation is not entirely Obama's fault, given the pressure he was under from all sides to lower the deficit. His major failing was threefold: underestimating how dangerous undershooting the stimulus would be (despite being warned at the time), banking on a Grand Bargain to shore up his bipartisan credentials in the run-up to the 2012 election, and failing to understand how irresistible austerity would be to Washington insiders. Think of austerity as a big shiny bag of crystal meth, and D.C. elites as a bunch of jittery speed freaks who haven't had a fix in weeks.
As Mike Grunwald convincingly demonstrated in his book, it was "centrist" senators like Arlen Specter who negotiated the stimulus down to $800 billion for no reason. However, that Obama didn't even try to win a bigger stimulus through a much bigger ask, or implement other mechanisms like a trigger that would keep spending flowing so long as unemployment was high, demonstrates his commitment to fixing the economy was weak at best.
Because after the stimulus was passed, Obama pivoted immediately to austerity, trying repeatedly to strike a Grand Bargain with Republicans. It was only total GOP intransigence that repeatedly saved our threadbare social insurance programs from being slashed.
For my money, the crazed bipartisan panic over the budget deficit that swept the political class in 2010 is the singlemost contemptible political event of the Obama era.
But as the unemployment rate has inched down with agonizing slowness, Obama and the Democratic Party have continued to implicitly rate deficit reduction as more important than jobs. The White House always trumpets proudly the latest deficit figures. Their jobs proposals are always deficit neutral. And they regard insinuations that ObamaCare might increase the deficit as the gravest slander.
Despite the absolute intellectual collapse of austerity as an economic program, it continues to hold cultural hegemony over most of the American elite. As with meth, the damage is immediate and staggering, but they just can't quit. It's well past time Democrats stopped enshrining deficit reduction as the most important policy goal.
Thursday, July 03, 2014
What an Elizabeth Warren should run on.
Between 1948 and 1979, real median family income increased by 117.6%, while between 1979 and 2012 real median family income increased by a mere 7.8%.
Thomas Palley on Friedman.
If the thirty-year period from 1945-1975 was the “Age of Keynes”, then the thirty-year period from 1975 - 2005 can legitimately be called the “Age of Friedman”
2008 on, the "Age of Piketty?"
Thomas Palley on Friedman.
If the thirty-year period from 1945-1975 was the “Age of Keynes”, then the thirty-year period from 1975 - 2005 can legitimately be called the “Age of Friedman”
2008 on, the "Age of Piketty?"
Sunday, June 22, 2014
K21 uber list by date (CHRONOLOGICALIZING A WORK IN PROGRESS)
Should markets clear? by Steve Randy Waldman (5.14.14)
Juncture interview: Thomas Piketty on capital, labour, growth and inequality (Juncture, 5.14.14)
The Top of the World: An ambitious study documents the long-term reign of the 1 percent by Doug Henwood (Bookforum, April/May 2014)
Tax as Policy: Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Heather Boushey (Challenge magazine, May/June 2014)
The Book Every Plutocrat Should Read: Thomas Piketty’s new tome just might save the super-rich from themselves. by Chrystia Freeland (Politico, 4.20.14)
Why We’re in a New Gilded Age by Paul Krugman (New York Review of Books, May 8, 2014 issue)
The Piketty Panic by Krugman (New York Times, 4.24.14)
The Piketty Phenomenon by David Brooks (New York Times, 4.24.14)
Wealth Over Work by Krugman (New York Times, 3.23.14)
Class, Oligarchy, and the Limits of Cynicism by Krugman (4.21.14 @ 8:29 a.m.)
Thomas Piketty Is Right: Everything you need to know about 'Capital in the Twenty-First Century' by Robert M. Solow (New Republic, 4.22.14)
THE HONEST BROKER: MR. PIKETTY AND THE “NEOCLASSICISTS”: A SUGGESTED INTERPRETATION: FOR THE WEEK OF MAY 17, 2014 by DeLong (5.22.14)
The Daily Piketty: Thursday Focus: April 24, 2014 by DeLong (4.24.14)
K21 translator Arthur Goldhammer tweets: "@delong plays Hicks to #Piketty: http://equitablegrowth.org/2014/05/07/slides-mr-piketty-neoclassicists-suggested-interpretation-wednesday-focus-may-7-2014/ … smart take, must read" (linked below as well)
OVER AT THE WCEG: SLIDES FOR: MR. PIKETTY AND THE "NEOCLASSICISTS": A SUGGESTED INTERPRETATION: WEDNESDAY FOCUS: MAY 7, 2014 by DeLong (5.7.14)
Juncture interview: Thomas Piketty on capital, labour, growth and inequality (Juncture, 5.14.14)
The Top of the World: An ambitious study documents the long-term reign of the 1 percent by Doug Henwood (Bookforum, April/May 2014)
Tax as Policy: Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Heather Boushey (Challenge magazine, May/June 2014)
The Book Every Plutocrat Should Read: Thomas Piketty’s new tome just might save the super-rich from themselves. by Chrystia Freeland (Politico, 4.20.14)
Why We’re in a New Gilded Age by Paul Krugman (New York Review of Books, May 8, 2014 issue)
The Piketty Panic by Krugman (New York Times, 4.24.14)
The Piketty Phenomenon by David Brooks (New York Times, 4.24.14)
Wealth Over Work by Krugman (New York Times, 3.23.14)
Class, Oligarchy, and the Limits of Cynicism by Krugman (4.21.14 @ 8:29 a.m.)
Thomas Piketty Is Right: Everything you need to know about 'Capital in the Twenty-First Century' by Robert M. Solow (New Republic, 4.22.14)
THE HONEST BROKER: MR. PIKETTY AND THE “NEOCLASSICISTS”: A SUGGESTED INTERPRETATION: FOR THE WEEK OF MAY 17, 2014 by DeLong (5.22.14)
The Daily Piketty: Thursday Focus: April 24, 2014 by DeLong (4.24.14)
K21 translator Arthur Goldhammer tweets: "@delong plays Hicks to #Piketty: http://equitablegrowth.org/2014/05/07/slides-mr-piketty-neoclassicists-suggested-interpretation-wednesday-focus-may-7-2014/ … smart take, must read" (linked below as well)
OVER AT THE WCEG: SLIDES FOR: MR. PIKETTY AND THE "NEOCLASSICISTS": A SUGGESTED INTERPRETATION: WEDNESDAY FOCUS: MAY 7, 2014 by DeLong (5.7.14)
OVER AT THE WASHINGTON CENTER FOR EQUITABLE GROWTH: NOTES AND FINGER EXERCISES ON THOMAS PIKETTY'S "CAPITAL IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY": THE HONEST BROKER FOR THE WEEK OF APRIL 19, 2014 by DeLong (4.12.14)
Capital in the 21 Century: Still Mired in the 19th (See correction) by Dean Baker (3.9.14 @ 10:35 p.m.)
Forces of Divergence: Is surging inequality endemic to capitalism? by John Cassidy (The New Yorker, 3.31.14)
PIKETTY’S INEQUALITY STORY IN SIX CHARTS by John Cassidy (The New Yorker, 3.26.14)
THE “PIKETTY BUBBLE” IS MORE THAN HOT AIR by John Cassidy (New Yorker, 5.1.14)
Studying the Rich: Thomas Piketty and his Critics by Mike Konczal (Boston Review, 4.29.14)
Capital in the 21 Century: Still Mired in the 19th (See correction) by Dean Baker (3.9.14 @ 10:35 p.m.)
Forces of Divergence: Is surging inequality endemic to capitalism? by John Cassidy (The New Yorker, 3.31.14)
PIKETTY’S INEQUALITY STORY IN SIX CHARTS by John Cassidy (The New Yorker, 3.26.14)
THE “PIKETTY BUBBLE” IS MORE THAN HOT AIR by John Cassidy (New Yorker, 5.1.14)
The accidental controversialist: deeper reflections on Thomas Piketty’s “Capital” by Thomas Palley (4.24.14 @ 1:57 p.m.)
Even Elizabeth Warren doesn't want Piketty's wealth tax by Matthew Yglesias (Vox, 4.28.14 @ 4:40 p.m.)
Lessons from a rock-star economist by Gillian Tett (Financial Times, 4.25.14 @ 11:40 a.m.)Even Elizabeth Warren doesn't want Piketty's wealth tax by Matthew Yglesias (Vox, 4.28.14 @ 4:40 p.m.)
Class warfare justified? by Robert J. Samuelson (Washington Post, 4.20.14)
dsquared's comment to Robin's Crooked Timber post:
"As far as I can tell, nothing really important in Piketty’s book depends on the capital controversy; it’s actually a book about wealth rather than capital in the technical sense. It’s just a bit irritating for people who happen to know that his use of “capital” and connected marginal concepts is wrong. Like if someone had written a really good book about climate change but kept on referring to “the temperature divided by zero” (4.26.14 @ 11:40 am) and this comment and this comment.
Hey, Big Thinker: Thomas Piketty, the Economist Behind ‘Capital in the Twenty-First Century’ Is the Latest Overnight Intellectual Sensation by Sam Tanenhaus (New York Times, 4.25.14)
Piketty for Dummies by Peter Dorman (4.26.14 @ 3:24 p.m.)
Two followups, in way too many words by Steve Randy Waldman (2.11.11(!) via DeLong)
Poulos Gets Piketty—and Tocqueville—Wrong by Arthur Goldhammer (Daily Beast, 4.26.14)
Today’s Wonky Elite Is in Love With the Wrong French Intellectual by James Poulos (Daily Beast, 4.23.14)
The Power of Piketty's Capital by Eric Alterman (The Nation, 5.12.14)
Thomas Piketty and Millennial Marxists on the Scourge of Inequality by Timothy Shenk (The Nation, 4.14.14)
Thomas Piketty and Millennial Marxists on the Scourge of Inequality by Timothy Shenk (The Nation, 4.14.14)
The New Marxism Part II by James Pethokoukis (National Review Online, 3.31.14)
The Most Important Book Ever Is All Wrong by Clive Crook (BloombergView, 4.20.14)
Piketty's Tax Hikes Won't Help the Middle Class by Megan McArdle (BloombergView, 4.22.14)
Whither The Bottom 90 Percent, Thomas Piketty? by Scott Winship (Forbes, 4.17.14)
Thomas Piketty, Jedediah Purdy And The Leftist Ethic of Resentfulness by Repair Man Jack (Red State, 4.22.14 @ 8:47 pm)
Thomas Piketty Revives Marx for the 21st Century by Daniel Shuchman (Wall Street Journal, 4.21.14 @ 7:18 p.m.)
White House honors French neo-Marxist by Thomas Lifson (American Thinker, 4.20.14)
What’s Wrong with Piketty’s Answer To Inequality by Veronique de Rugy (National Review Online, 4.24.14 @6:57 p.m.)
Capital Punishment: Why a Global Tax on Wealth Won't End Inequality by Tyler Cowen (Foreign Affairs, May/June 2014 issue)
Why I am not persuaded by Thomas Piketty’s argument by Tyler Cowen (4.21.14 @ 2:20 p.m.)
Tyler Cowen is one of Nietzsche’s Marginal Children by Corey Robin (4.22.14)
The Hourly Piketty: Paul Krugman, “Gattopardo Economics”, and Economic Modelling by DeLong (4.24.14 @ 5:23 p.m.)
Piketty and Pareto by Krugman (4.25.14 @ 8:20 a.m.)
Frustrations of the Heterodox by Krugman (4.25.14 @ 10:09 a.m.)
The Daily Piketty: Thursday Focus: April 24, 2014 by DeLong (4.24.14 @ 2:47 p.m.)
Notes from Capital in the 21st Century Panel by Suresh Naidu (The Slack Wire, 4.20.14)
What Marx Really Meant by Suresh Naidu (Jacobin, 4.28.14)
‘Capital in the Twenty-First Century’, by Thomas Piketty by Martin Wolf (Financial Times, 4.15.14 @ 5:38 p.m.)
Thomas Piketty doesn’t hate capitalism: He just wants to fix it by Matthew Yglesias (Vox, 4.24.14)
Interview with Piketty by Matthew Yglesias (Vox, 4.24.14)
The return of "patrimonial capitalism": review of Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st century by Branko Milanovic (October 2013)
The return of "patrimonial capitalism": review of Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st century by Branko Milanovic (October 2013)
The Capital Creators, Piketty and Growth Theory by Joshua Gans (Digitopoly, 4.23.14)
OVER AT THE WASHINGTON CENTER FOR EQUITABLE GROWTH: PIKETTY DAY HERE AT BERKELEY: THE HONEST BROKER FOR THE WEEK OF APRIL 26, 2014 by DeLong (4.23.14)
A Good Question Re the Piketty Book by Jared Bernstein (4.26.14 @ 10:26 a.m.)
Piketty’s “Capital,” in a Lot Less than 696 Pages by Justin Fox (Harvard Business Review, 4.24.14 @ 8:00 a.m.)
New French Book Will Become Important When It's In English by Kevin Drum (Mother Jones, 12.16.13 @ 1:15 p.m.)
Drum (above) links to Assorted links by Tyler Cowen (12.16.13 @ 12:46 p.m.)
All men are created unequal: Revisiting an old argument about the impact of capitalism (The Economist, 1.4.14)
American Economists Are Not Equipped To Digest What Piketty Has Served Them by Rob Wiley (Business Insider, 4.28.14 @5:54)
DeLong expanded his answers:
Over at Business Insider: Five Questions and Answers About Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”: Monday Focus; April 28, 2014 by DeLong (4.28.14 @ 11:42 a.m.)
Capital in partial equilibrium by Ryan Decker (3.25.14 @ 7:54 p.m.)
"From the right" by Ryan Decker (4.28.14 @ 6:14 p.m.)
What Piketty’s Conservative Critics Get Wrong by Kathleen Geier (The Baffler, 4.28.14)
Taking on the Heiristocracy: History shows that growth alone won’t stop vast economic inequality by Kathleen Geier (Washington Monthly, March/ April/ May 2014)
Physics and the 'marginalist revolution' by Philip Mirowski (via JW Mason)
JW Mason comment on different ways to formalize the Piketty argument (04.29.14)
The Conservative Case For Thomas Piketty by Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry (Forbes, 4.24.14 @ 9:14)
Minnesota Mafia Challenges Piketty by Barkley Rosser (4.28.14 @ 10:02 p.m.)
What Piketty Leaves Out by Robert Kuttner (4.29.14)
Thomas Piketty's Capital: everything you need to know about the surprise bestseller by Paul Mason (The Guardian, 4.28.14 @14:23)
Len McCluskey on Capital in the Twenty-first Century: 'manna from heaven' (The Guardian, 4.28.14 @14.18)
VC for the people by Steve Randy Waldman (4.16.14)
Piketty on Capital: A Footnote by Henry Farrell (Crooked Timber, 4.5.14)
Trickle-Up Economics by David Cay Johnston (Al Jazeera America, 3.23.14 @ 8:45 a.m.)
Capitalism vs. Democracy by Thomas Edsall (New York Times, 1.28.14)
Notes on Piketty (Wonkish) by Krugman (3.14.14 @ 7:47 a.m.)
Thomas Piketty Has a Grim View of Our Plutocratic Future by Kevin Drum (Mother Jones, 1.29.14 @ 11:51 a.m.)
Q&A: Thomas Piketty on the Wealth Divide by Eduardo Porter (3.11.14 @ 6:21 p.m.)
Adam Smith is not the antidote to Thomas Piketty by Deborah Boucoyannis (Washington Post-The Monkey Cage, 4.22.14 @ 10:14 a.m.)
Why Piketty's Book Is a Bigger Deal in America Than in France by Tyler Cowen and Veronique de Rugy (The Upshot, 4.29.14)
The Most Important Book of the Twenty-First Century by Stephen Marche (Esquire, 4.24.14)
A revue of reviews - everything you could ever want to read about Piketty's Capital by Michael Bird (City A.M., 4.29.14 @ 12:29 p.m.)
Piketty and the case for land capital by Karl Smith (FT Alphaville, 2.3.14 @ 15:00)
Heather Boushey (and Me) on Thomas Piketty: Tuesday Focus by DeLong (3.11.14 8:15 a.m.)
THOMAS PIKETTY UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPTED SMACKDOWN WATCH: I FIND MYSELF DISAPPOINTED BY THE USUALLY-RELIABLE JAMES GALBRAITH AND PETHOKOUKIS by DeLong (4.6.14 @ 10:23 p.m.)
Thinking About Piketty’s “Capital” by Steve Roth (Angry Bear, 4.6.14 @ 12:50)
America risks becoming a Downton Abbey economy by Lawrence Summers (2.16.14 @ 5:28 p.m.)
Dude, Where’s Your Piketty Review??!! by Jared Bernstein (4.19.14 @ 10:01 a.m.)
Economist Receives Rock Star Treatment by Jennifer Schuessler (New York Times, 4.18.14)
JW Mason comment (Crooked Timber, 4.30.14 at 12:46 a.m.)
"Right. Or think about Milton Friedman, whose Monetary History of the United States is about as far from the ahistorical, mathematical abstraction of contemporary economics as you can get. Bob Pollin once told me that that book is the model we radical economists should be trying to emulate. I think he was right."
Why everyone is talking about Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Ryan Cooper (The Week, 3.25.14)
Video of Piketty with Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, and Steven Durlauf participated in a panel moderated by Branko Milanovic.
Here’s an unlikely bestseller: A 700-page book on 21st century economics by Jia Lynn Yang (Wonkblog, 4.22.14 @ 12:35 p.m.)
‘Capital in the Twenty-first Century’ by Thomas Piketty by Steven Pearlstein (Washington Post, 3.28.14)
Thomas Piketty’s Improbable Data by Hunter Lewis (The Ludwig Von Mises Institute, 5.2.14)
Inequality 101: The Picket Fence and the Staircase by John Cassidy (New Yorker, 4.12.12)
Piketty Review Roundup: “Capital in the 21st Century” by Jeff Madrick (Century Foundation, 5.2.14)
The Right Needs a New Message on Income Inequality by Benjamin Domenech (Wall Street Journal, 4.28.14 @ 7:31 p.m.)
Tyler Cowen's anti-Piketty crusade by Noah Smith (5.2.14)
Piketty, Doom Loops and Haymarket by Ross Douthat (New York Times, 4.22.14 @ 3:53 p.m.)
Robert Solow on Piketty by Arnold Kling (4.23.14)
For Larry Summers, Inequality A Subject Worthy of Yawns by Ellen Killoran (International Business Times, 5.2.14 @ 12:28 p.m.)
Book review: Capital in the 21st Century by Thomas Piketty by Robert Skidelsky (Prospect Magazine, 3.27.14)
How to Write a Marxist Critique of Thomas Piketty Without Actually Reading the Book by Zachary Levenson (Jacobin, 5.2.14)
Hangups of the Heterodox (Vaguely Wonkish) by Krugman (5.1.14 @ 3:41 p.m.)
Thomas Piketty and the Ghost of Joan Robinson by Dean Baker (5.1.14 @ 20:16)
Why Economists Are Finally Taking Inequality Seriously by Mark Thoma (Fiscal Times, 5.6.14)
The coming boom in inherited wealth by John Quiggin (Crooked Timber, 4.16.12)
Piketty, Oligarchy, and Conservative Evasion by Jonathan Chait (New York Magazine, 4.25.14 @ 3:51 p.m.)
More Matt Rognlie on Piketty by Tyler Cowen (4.10.14)
A Prologomena to Any Future Reading of Piketty by Steven Pressman (Dollars and Sense, 5.5.14)
A Prologomena to Any Future Reading of Piketty by Steven Pressman (Dollars and Sense, 5.5.14)
THE MAGICAL MATHEMATICS OF MR PIKETTY by George Cooper (4.29.14)
THE MAGICAL MATHEMATICS OF MR PIKETTY – PART II by George Cooper (5.5.14)
The Critique of Capital in the Twenty-First Century: In Search of Macroeconomic Foundations of Inequatlity by Guillaume Allègre and Xavier Timbeau
Where do profits come from? by Matthew Yglesias (Vox, 5.8.14)
Obama’s Top Economist Has Some Problems With Piketty’s Book by Neil Irwin (The Upshot, 5.7.14)
Global Lessons for Inclusive Growth by Jason Furman (5.7.14)
Piketty’s Arguments Still Hold Up, After Taxes by Jared Bernstein (The Upshot, 5.9.14)
Jason Furman, POTUS’s Chief Economist, on Inequality, Piketty, and Growth by Jared Bernstein (5.10.14 @ 10:04 a.m.)
The problem with Thomas Piketty: “Capital” destroys right-wing lies, but there’s one solution it forgets by Thomas Frank (Salon, 5.11.14)
Selling Thomas Piketty (Harvard University Press Blog, 5.12.14)
Piketty's Wealth Tax Isn't a Joke by Clive Crook (BloombergView, 5.11.14)
Microfoundations of Inequality and Sabotage by Sandwichman (5.12.14)
Thomas Piketty and His Critics by Thomas Edsall (New York Times, 5.14.14)
The Inequality Puzzle by Lawrence H. Summers (Democracy, Spring 2014)
Summers reviews Piketty by Jared Bernstein (5.14.14)
What Larry Summers Gets Wrong On Piketty's 'Capital' by Matt Bruenig (Demos, 5.15.14)
Demos on Piketty's Capital
The Politics of Income Inequality by Eduardo Porter (New York Times, 5.13.14)
What Piketty's Neoliberal Critics Get Wrong by Kathleen Geier (Baffler, 5.15.14)
The Two Inequalities by Peter Dorman (Econospeak, 5.16.14 @ 1:15 a.m.)
Piketty's Old News by Eric Schnurer (U.S. News & World Report, 5.16.14)
Piketty crossing the Delaware by John Quiggin (Crooked Timber, 5.18.14)
Thomas Piketty: I Don't Care for Marx by Isaac Chotiner (New Republic, 5.5.14)
Middle Class Earnings Are Stagnant! (Because Retirees Have No Earnings) by Scott Winship (Forbes, 5.20.14)
Ross Douthat Makes Some Good Points (and one bad one) by Jared Bernstein (5.19.14)
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Bang Query by Brad DeLong (5.23.14)
The FT Gets Piketty's Capital Argument Wrong by Mike Konczal (5.24.14)
My view on Piketty's critique by the FT by Branko Milanovic
That Big Financial Times Story on Errors in Piketty's Data is Overrated by Danny Vick (5.23.14)
Criticisms of Piketty by James Hamilton (5.25.14)
More on Piketty by James Hamilton (5.28.14)
Nit-Piketty by Debraj Ray (5.25.14)
Should We Count Out Piketty Due to Sum Math Errors? by Steve Pressman (Dollars and Sense, 5.25.14)
Political Economy is Political by Henry Farrell (Crooked Timber, 5.27.14)
Policy, not capitalism, is to blame for the income divide by James Galbraith (Financial Times, 5.26.14)
The Piketty data controversy by Jérémie Cohen-Setton (Bruegel, 5.26.14)
Piketty’s data deserve better analysis by Carter Price (5.27.14)
Reviewing Lawrence H. Summers’s Review of Piketty IV: Combatting Inequality on Many Fronts: Tuesday Focus: May 27, 2014 by Brad DeLong (28 May 2014)
PARSING PIKETTY: IS WEALTH INEQUALITY RISING IN THE U.S.? by John Cassidy (New Yorker, 5.27.14)
Thomas Piketty and Joseph Schumpeter (and Gerard Debreu) by David Glasner (5.28.14)
Bloomberg video
Piketty versus Hassett: a primer on after-tax income and inequality by Marshall Steinbaum (29 May 2014)
Piketty versus Hassett: a primer on after-tax income and inequality by Marshall Steinbaum (29 May 2014)
Thomas Doubting Refuted by Krugman (5.30.14)
Morning Must-Read: Daniel Kuehn Reads Howard Reed on Piketty vs. Giles: “It’s All About the Discontinuities” by Brad DeLong (30 May 2014)
The Daily Piketty: May 30, 2014 by Brad DeLong
This Year's Model by Scott Sumner (6.2.14)
Department of “Huh?!”–I Don’t Understand More and More of Piketty’s Critics: Per Krusell and Tony Smith by Brad DeLong (2 June 2014)
Department of “Huh?!”–I Don’t Understand More and More of Piketty’s Critics: Per Krusell and Tony Smith by Brad DeLong (2 June 2014)
Thomas Piketty’s big book: What do you really need to know? by Heather Boushey (5.14.14)
Reviewing Lawrence H. Summers’s Review of Piketty V: Secular Stagnation and the High-Pressure Economy: Tuesday Focus: June 32014 by DeLong (6.3.14)
Plots and Subplots in Piketty's Capital by Rajiv Sethi (6.3.14)
Educating Brad DeLong by James Hamilton (6.4.14)
OVER AT EQUITABLE GROWTH: TRYING, YET AGAIN, TO COMMUNICATE THE ARITHMETIC SCAFFOLDING OF PIKETTY'S "CAPITAL IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY": THURSDAY FOCUS: JUNE 5, 2014 by DeLong
Educating Brad DeLong by James Hamilton (6.4.14)
When Piketty Came to America by Andrea Levere and Ezra Levin (Politco, 4.28.14)
Economist says U.S. inequality reaching "spectacular" heights by Alain Sherter (CBS News Moneywatch, 6.5.14)
Not Another Piketty Symposium by Mike Beggs (Jacobin)
Piketty fever: Bigger than Marx (Economist, 5.3.14)
Piketty, Marx and the roots of inequality by Benjamin Selwyn (Le Monde Diplomatique, 6.6.14)
Piketty’s Fair-Weather Friends by Seth Ackerman (Jacobin, 5.29.14)
Three Ways of Looking at alpha = r k by JW Mason (6.4.14)
Capital Man: Thomas Piketty is economics’ biggest sensation. He’s also the field’s fiercest critic. By Emily Eakin (Chronicle of Higher Education, 4.17.14)
OVER AT EQUITABLE GROWTH: DEPRECIATION RATES ON WEALTH IN THOMAS PIKETTY'S DATABASE: MONDAY FOCUS: JUNE 9, 2014 by DeLong
OVER AT EQUITABLE GROWTH: DAILY PIKETTY: MATT ROGNLIE HAS A FIRST-RATE CRITIQUE: THURSDAY FOCUS FOR JUNE 12, 2014 by DeLong
Housing in the twenty-first century by Ryan Avent (Economist, 6.17.14)
Inequality in the long run by Thomas Piketty and Emanuel Saez (Science, May 2014)
How Inherited Wealth Helps the Economy by Greg Mankiw (The Upshot, 6.21.14)
CAPITAL IN PIKETTY'S 'CAPITAL' by Unlearning Economics (Jun 18th 2014)
Piketty’s laws with investment replacement and depreciation by Ton van Schaik, (6 July 2014, Vox)
Sumner on Piketty by Frances Coppola (7.7.14)
When The Rate Of Return And The Rate Of Growth Do Not Matter Much For Piketty by Barkley Rosser (Econospeak, 7.7.14)
Piketty vs. Marx (8.11.14, Bookforum)
Yes, Acemoglu and Robinson's review of Piketty is very strange by Daniel Kuehn (8.26.14)
Understanding Piketty, part 3 by Kenneth Thomas (Angry Bear, 8.21.14)
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