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I didn’t believe in the liquidity trap and was pretty down on old-fashioned Keynesianism until 1998, when a hard look at Japan and an attempt to understand what was happening there led me to change my mind. Krugman on Japan and Keynes. Macroeconomic Morality – NYTimes.com

Tourism: America should make it much easier for foreign visitors to come here.

Tourism: America should make it much easier for foreign visitors to come here.

Talk of exports normally conjures up images of factories and container ships, but many of America’s exports are services. The nation’s biggest service export is in some sense not an export at all—it’s travel and tourism

So can we now start arguing that the national security state is hurting exports?

Taxes Are Austerity

Taxes Are Austerity

A confusing new argument I’m seeing from the right is that European austerity programs aren’t really austerity because some of the deficit reduction has come from tax increases. All that shows is that European politicians favor fiscal austerity, which is a mix of tax hikes and spending cuts—i.e., exactly what European countries have been implementing.

This is the defense of austerity by claiming it wasn’t enough austere enough. If it were just done by massive service cuts then it would have worked.

Greg Sargent on Charles Krauthammer and Paul Ryan: “This is worse than a shell game. It’s a shell game without the pea.”

Greg Sargent on Charles Krauthammer and Paul Ryan: “This is worse than a shell game. It’s a shell game without the pea.”

There is a real simple two question test I apply when I am trying to sort out the sincerity of a policy opinion.

  • If the facts were different, would the policy opinion be different?
  • If the facts were opposite, would the policy be opposite?

I first came up with this test during the debate over the Bush tax cuts. The debate quickly when from the economy is doing well, we can afford a tax cut to the economy is in crisis, we need a tax cut for stimulus.

So, if unemployment were low and school costs flat; would Ryan propose the same budget or a different budget?

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People in my camp have repeated until we’re blue in the face that the case for fiscal expansion is very specific to circumstance — it’s desirable when you’re in a liquidity trap, and only when you’re in a liquidity trap. Structural Flashbacks – NYTimes.com Keynesian Economics 101

Robert Reich: The Answer Isn’t Socialism; It’s Capitalism that Better Spreads the Benefits of the Productivity Revolution

Robert Reich: The Answer Isn’t Socialism; It’s Capitalism that Better Spreads the Benefits of the Productivity Revolution

robertreich:

Francois Hollande’s victory doesn’t and shouldn’t mean a movement toward socialism in Europe or elsewhere. Socialism isn’t the answer to the basic problem haunting all rich nations.

The answer is to reform capitalism. The world’s productivity revolution is outpacing the political will of rich…

U.S. Has No Idea Whether al-Qaida is Beat

U.S. Has No Idea Whether al-Qaida is Beat

The official continued, “I think it is a very useful exercise, for us and for you all, to think about how do you conceive of the defeat of an organization like al-Qaida? But I think, I’ve said in the past, determining whether or not we’ve achieved strategic defeat may be more a question for historians than for analysts.”

So they are going to leave it to historians to decide when the country can get back to normal levels of security and military posture?

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I am not a defender of the economic policies of the Emperor Diocletian. Don’t Know Much About (Ancient) History – NYTimes.com