Like them or hate them, Alberta, Canada’s tar sands deposits of bitumen or extremely heavy crude oil, are the world’s largest. The province’s resources include the Athabasca, Peace River and Cold Lake deposits in the McMurray Formation, which consist of a mixture of crude bitumen, a semi-solid form of crude oil, admixed with silica sand, … Read more
Last week the Business Roundtable came out with a position paper entitled “Social Security Reform and Medicare Modernization Proposals.” Its centerpiece is an increase to 70 in the eligibility for Social Security and Medicare. According to Gary W. Loveman, Ph.D., Chairman, CEO & President, Caesars Entertainment Corporation, and Chair of the Roundtable’s Health and Retirement … Read more
We finally can know what the Fed officials talked about in their FOMC meetings in 2007 as the economy crashed all around them: FT report here http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/abc16b8a-6193-11e2-9545-00144feab49a.html#axzz2IMQwl7c4; and Fed’s transcripts here http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/fomchistorical2007.htm After the Greenspan fiasco, when Rep. Henry Gonzalez caught him fibbing about recordings of Fed meetings (Greenspan denied that the Fed kept them, but actually did … Read more
Politico highlighted a scenario that has become my ‘base case’: a short-term debt limit extension followed by a government shutdown at the end of March. This consolidates the three cliffs–debt limit, sequester, and continuing resolution–into one larger showdown that, hopefully, produces an agreement some time in April. This scenario has become a focus ahead of a … Read more
All G7 economies are struggling in the post-crisis climate, but US GDP has recovered to pre-crisis levels, while the Eurozone simply hasn’t. This column portrays the global crisis as a transitory shock for the US, but as a quasi-permanent shock for Europe. The policies that are needed get the Eurozone back on track do not … Read more
In a new review of Reinhart and Rogoff’s book, This Time is Different, economic historian Alan Taylor points out that ignoring the historical relationship between government debt and financial crises can be costly. It can lead to a kind of wishful thinking that governments can borrow any amount of money without producing any adverse economic … Read more
Economists are sometimes accused, and justly so, of trying to read too much into the latest monthly wiggle in every data series that they watch. To counter that tendency, we can start the discussion of today’s release of inflation data with a longer-term view. Instead of looking at monthly CPI data, let’s look at five-year … Read more
This is the third part in a series that is responding to a nice post by my fellow Economonitor blogger, Ed Dolan. We’ve been discussing the sustainability of US federal budget deficits and debts. Because we agreed there is no question of “affordability” we’ve moved on to other issues surrounding sustainability. A common method is … Read more
That’s what the villain Auric Goldfinger tells 007 when the latter asks, “Do you expect me to talk?” in the Bond movie Goldfinger. This is exactly how I feel about Turkish bonds. This is the intro. to my latest Hurriyet Daily News (HDN) column, where I argue that the ultra-low Turkish bond yields are not … Read more
“Congress should “act immediately to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every single school in this nation” Wayne LaPierre, CEO, National Rifle Assn. (NRA) Shootings in our schools are tragic, and each of us has the urge to “do something,” but I have major concerns about placing armed guards in our schools. … Read more