Krugman Watch: Culture Is A Status Economy

And Sweden is an outlier.
On November 11, 2011 By

The assertion that Europe’s crisis proves that the welfare state doesn’t work comes from many Republicans. … The idea, presumably, is that the crisis countries are in trouble because they’re groaning under the burden of high government spending. But .. [...]
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from Modeled Behavior on the Jobs Report

…here is the long-run trend on private sector service sector employment.

Notice that its just as strong as the last recovery though coming sooner. Not quite as strong as [...]
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Jarrow On Predicting Asset Bubbles

Or, just listen to the working class.
On November 4, 2011 By

In, How to Detect an Asset Bubble, Robert Jarrow, Younes Kchia and Philip Protter describe the method by which asset bubbles can be deduced from the asymptotic behavior of prices.

I can just about follow the reasoning, and it [...]
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Why 30 Large Companies Paid Only 18% Tax

Tax policy is worse than free markets, but in the context of taxation, politicians tend to be less idiotic than we assume
On November 4, 2011 By

Rick writes:

RE: “One big one is accelerated depreciation that lets them write off equipment faster than it actually wears out. Deductions on executive stock options help. So do tax breaks for research and development and for making products in [...]
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On a facebook conversation Ron writes:

Capitalism and Socialism have become emotionally charged misrepresentations of their ideals, so I won’t go there. Profit is not a driver, it is a derivative of the current market system. If profit really was [...]
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Vanessa Friedman of the Financial Times writes about her frustration that the ‘Best Dressed Lists’ actually contain the ‘most influential people’, not the best dressed. See Is Kate Middleton best-dressed or best-addressed?

So anyone want to join me in [...]
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Krugman Watch: Austerity Class? Or is it a Starve-The-Beast Class?

Leftist framing confuses strategy and tactics.
On October 21, 2011 By

Paul Krugman Quotes Ari Berman today:

The central paradox in American politics over the past two years: how, in the midst of a massive unemployment crisis—when it’s painfully obvious that not enough jobs are being created and the public overwhelmingly [...]
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In practical terms, Religions establish the terms by which the population consents to be ruled.

Religions differ from systems of ethics, in that they are far harder to alter in response to fashion – ethical systems have a predictable and [...]
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Why I'm Harping On Karl Smith

Because he's the only one out there who can bridge the gap, if we can just get him to acknowledge that government bureaucracy is a 'bad'.
On September 18, 2011 By

There are only two people who make rational arguments on the ‘left’. They’re you and Krugman. We all know he’s a political shill. I’m in the camp that says you’re a moral man, and just missing the point of it [...]
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Debating Means Of Stimulus – Tradeoffs Between Goods And Bads

Arguing For Tax Cuts Funded By Debt vs Paydowns On Mortgages - Plus why I play harpie to Karl's Position.
On September 18, 2011 By

Karl Smith (correctly) suggests that we could make drastic tax cuts to fund stimulus, and borrow the money cheaply. I think he misses the point of the entire political debate going on in the country today (people don’t trust [...]
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