2013

the US uses government money as the currency of account, there is no government budget constraint in the short or long run. Though even so-called Keynesians like Paul Krugman act like there is. The reality is that government can spend as…

Why does the federal government need to balance its books? Where does the money come from that the government spends? Whose income gets cut when spending gets cut? These are a few of the questions we should be asking when thinking about…

News links for 12 March 2013

The difficulty in making sense of the results of the Italian election has produced the common imagery of a clown to capture the comic Grillo, who appears to be the most unlikely politician since Lech Walesa, the unemployed electrician that…

Today s going to be a bit light on posting as I am under the weather and have been in bed all day. But there are one or two stories I wanted to say something about while it was still topical. One of those is LinkedIn. This post isn't about…

It is not being widely discussed, but we suspect the wage settlement in Germany over the weekend is an important development. The agreement that covers 765k state government workers in Germany, represented by Verdi, reached a two-year deal…

News links for 11 March 2013

News links for 9 March 2013

The US employment situation summary for February showed an improving labor market with 236,000 jobs created and unemployment down to 7.7%. These numbers are indicative of an improving labor market and reflect the likelihood that the US will…

The US jobs data was consistent with the recent string of data clearly showing a surprising resilience to the anticipation and tightening of fiscal policy. The Canadian employment data was also stronger than expected.