stimulus

The sense that America’s spending is out of control is visceral. It will be cut. Looking for a job, running a business or Investing in a world of austerity is a lot different from getting along in normal times. I advise everyone to think…

I flagged the inevitability of deficit fatigue as early as November 2008. I am sympathetic to the view that these deficits are an attempt to prop up excess credit growth and thus retard full recovery. But I also fear the consequences of a…

In this week’s Big Interview, Barton Biggs has a lot to say. What stands out and what the WSJ has stressed is his support for public works programs.

When we tighten our belts, it means that we are trying to build up our savings. We do this by spending less. But spending drives our economy. Sales create jobs. So unless Obama has a secret plan to reverse three decades of current account…

Rather than adding stimulus with the aim of goosing demand to help the economy reach escape velocity, I would say that the central objective of economic policy is to help the economy reach full employment. Doing so will increase demand,…

If the US wants job growth, it will need to reduce private sector debt levels - and that takes time. The government can act a a counterweight to the demand drag but I am very sceptical of claims like Summers’ that doing so would solve a…

Jeffrey Gundlach spoke with Joe Weisenthal of Business Insider in an exclusive interview which they recently carried on their site. Gundlach believes that the economy is “a low-performance mode” that makes the unemployment overhang…

As Jon Hilsenrath pointed out in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal Bernanke has already indicated that the hurdle to more quantitative easing is very high. This is not to say that QE3 is off the table forever. But QE3 will only become a…

The soft patch in and of itself is not a problem. There is always some sort of mid-cycle slowdown. The real problem for economic growth bulls (and risk assets) is that this particular soft patch is increasingly likely to be met with…

I ran across a post by Robert Murphy over at the Mises Institute blog on Modern Monetary Theory. Since I have been pushing the idea that the centrality of secular debt accumulation makes some ideas from MMT and Austrian Economics…