A New York Times story, “How U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work,” uses an Obama dinner with Silicon Valley titans to frame its tale of why the US middle class should roll over and die. I am of course exaggerating for effect. But not by as much as you might think. The story by Charles … Read more
Journalists are undoubtedly having a hard time following official economic policy in Spain at the moment. The core of the problem they face is that we have a hydra headed government which speaks with many tongues. In some ways the lack of coordination can be put down to simple newness and inexperience, although it should be … Read more
Tim Duy and Paul Krugman discuss the merits and failures of Japanese policy. The sectoral snapshot of the economic financial balances shows that Japanese policy was indeed a success but also a failure. First, policy was a success, given the private sector was recuperating from the bursting of a credit and investment bubble. The chart … Read more
In my previous post, I offered a rough-and-ready estimate of the impact that a real estate slowdown could potentially have on China’s impressive rate of GDP growth. Based on some of the official figures for 2011, released earlier this week, I concluded that a mere leveling off (zero percent growth) in property investment — much … Read more
The recent allegations of trade secret theft and trafficking against former Goldman Sachs programmer Sergey Aleynikov raise important questions of corporate security and policy to handle a new generation of attempted economic disruption. According to a deposition given by FBI Agent Michael McSwain, Aleynikov, a former programmer at Goldman Sachs, is purported to have uploaded … Read more
If I had Onion-level parody skills, I’d treat the latest story in The Hill on Team Obama’s latest housing headfake masquerading as an initiative by riffing on one of its planned new program. Call it HUMP, Homeowners Upward Mobility Program. In true Ministry of Truth style, mortgage borrowers facing foreclosure would be moved, discreetly, into … Read more
At the end of July Alan Greenspan published an Op Ed arguing that tighter financial regulation and capital standards will lead to the accumulation of “idle resources that are not otherwise engaged in the production of goods and services” and are instead devoted “to fending off once-in-50 or 100-year crises” resulting in an “excess of … Read more
My colleague, Bill Black, has been entertaining himself by reading through the transcripts of the Fed’s meetings to find discussions of mortgage fraud. As you probably know, Congressman Henry Gonzalez forced the Fed to release these transcripts after he caught Chairman Greenspan in a white lie. Well, maybe it was not so white—just an outright … Read more
As China enters 2012, concerns that its economy may face a “hard landing” have entered the mainstream. In recent weeks, Paul Krugman (“Will China Break?” in the New York Times) and Robert Samuelson (“China’s Coming Slump?” in the Washington Post) both penned hand-wringing op-eds warning of an impending Chinese downturn. It’s interesting to see the … Read more
(Note: I am feeling bearish today, especially looking back to lost opportunities to get ahead of the current environment.) By mid-summer it was evident the recovery was in jeopardy, that the slowdown in economic activity could not be entirely explained by temporary factors, that unemployment would remain unacceptably high, and that the slow motion train … Read more