fiscal

by L. Randall Wray We are in the third act of the theater of the absurd. In the first act, Chairman Bernanke created QE1, through which the Fed bought $1.75 trillion of assets from banks—mostly trashy mortgage backed securities, but also a…

I wrote a post about six months ago called "Misunderstanding Modern Monetary Theory" on deficits and resource allocation that I was re-reading. I wanted to add some off-the-cuff comments that might be relevant to today's…

Present Obama answers questions on his decision to go against his campaign promises to let the Bush tax cuts expire.

Highlights The US dollar is mostly lower on news that US President Obama reached an agreement to extend the Bush tax cuts for another two years, which has lifted stocks and buoyed risk appetite, despite the speculation that China may…

The tax cut deal is in. I would agree with Felix Salmon's take, that "this is tax cutting, Oprah-style: you get a tax cut! And you get a tax cut! And you! And you! You all get a tax cut!" Since Democrats and Republicans were never…

Commercial real estate has been regressively “freed” from debt – leaving the rental value to be pledged to banks as interest. This un-taxing of land rent has been a major factor inflating the real estate bubble on credit, much as…

The thinking behind Eurobonds is that a pan-euro zone debt instrument could be used as a release valve for liquidity issues, allowing the truly insolvent to restructure their state level debt if necessary, without creating contagion. The…

I have been in meetings with Very Serious Texas Politicians where secession was earnestly discussed 15 years ago. Do I think that could happen? No. The Fed will never choose hyperinflation, and I do not think you can find 60 Senators to…

if many countries were in the cast of “The Biggest Loser,” the US would be among the fattest competitors. Thus, with this report, is the US now able to say, “See here, we are going to go work as hard as the rest of you to slim down”? Maybe…

James K. Galbraith writes that the National Committee on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform's underlying budgetary analysis is faulty because it rests on the false premise that a country can involuntarily default on a fiat currency it…