policy failure

I want to take the most macro view possible today. We have a major US election upon us. And we are also experiencing significant increases in Covid-19 infections in Europe and North America. These are events with a wide dispersion of…

I am a bit time-constrained today. So I want to make this a relatively brief post. I am going to focus narrowly on initial claims for unemployment insurance in the US and on the political struggle to aid the 30 million people unemployed due…

As I write this, I am waiting for the latest jobless claims data out of the US to be released. But, irrespective of what the data show, unfortunately we are seeing a W-shaped pattern to economic data. And that looks set to continue. Some…

With financial markets seemingly untethered from the real economy, it's not clear what impact differential viral outcomes will have on risk assets. Because of central bank intervention and the potential of that intervention to put a floor…

Those of you who know my writing from days gone day, when Credit Writedowns was a blog, know that I gave up advocating for policy responses a long time ago. Not to be a defeatist, but the lesson I learned from the Great Financial Crisis was…

Framing the problem The question on my mind today is about best case economic outcomes. How does a country get through the Covid-19 pandemic with the least bad economic outcome? And in thinking about that question, I want to do three…

How many people will die because lockdowns are lifted prematurely? That's the first question going through my head as I think about the logic of yesterday's post on the coronavirus lockdown. No sooner had I written that post predicting that…

I have been looking back at my posts and re-reading my coverage of this global health crisis to get a sense of what I got wrong and why. I know this sounds perverse. But I think it's critical to actively seek non-confirming information and…

it’s now much more clear that the coronavirus is a serious event risk and that financial conditions are tightening very quicky. The Federal Reserve needs to take these signals seriously to prevent worst-case outcomes, that include recession…

Recently Press Secretary Robert Gibbs made an unsuccessful attempt to pin blame for the Obama Administration's failed economic policies on the "professional left." Gibbs said "those people ought to be drug tested" and…