Thomas Mayer is the chief economist of Deutsche Bank Group and head of Deutsche Bank Research. He has an impressive background as a highly placed analyst in major private and public financial institutions. Which is to say, when he speaks, people are much more likely to pay attention and to give weight to what he says than...
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The Sunday Boston Globe has an interesting profile of Ken Rogoff, whose views I respect, despite many disagreements. His recent call for a burst of “moderate” inflation to reduce the debt overhang has gotten a lot of play in the press. I don’t favor the idea, but at least Rogoff acknowledges, not only the...
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Robert Higgs noted here on July 6th that FDR defaulted on the national debt by “going off the gold standard.” Moreover, FDR was (and is) much praised for his courageous action in favor of the “little guy” and against “sound money” bankers. FDR did this with a stroke of the pen (Executive Order) and...
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Since late December 2008, the bank prime lending rate — the interest rate banks charge their best corporate customers — has remained steady at 3.25 percent. Meanwhile, during the same period, the excess reserves that commercial banks hold at the Fed have increased from $2 billion in August 2008 to $1,513 billion in May 2011. Ordinarily,...
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The Bureau of Labor Statistics has released the Consumer Price Index data for May, and the CPI is up about half a percent (actually, 0.47%) since April. The annual inflation rate (year over year increase since May 2010) is now 3.6%. Most of this increase has come in the last six months, because the...
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Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is troubled by the unemployment rate that has crept back upwards, and the “frustratingly slow” economic recovery. And so what does he propose? More of the same, of course. More liquidity and a base interest rate kept near zero. You see, this is practically the only tool he has: monetary...
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In 2011, the state of Illinois public pension was on the brink of disaster, with unfunded liabilities upward of $100 billion. By adjusting the benefits and contributions of current workers, the disaster was averted for those then retired. Those workers of 2011 “did their part” and are still working today, many of them into...
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Independent Institute Research Fellow Emily Skarbek is interviewed here by Nick Gillespie of Reason TV regarding the Institute’s very timely and far-reaching Government Cost Calculator. The Calculator enables any American to clearly understand three aspects of federal government spending. First, the Calculator helps you determine how much a person will pay for various federal...
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According to yesterday’s weekly federal report, This Week in Petroleum, the average price of regular gasoline is up to $3.96 per gallon, just 15 cents shy of its July 2008 peak. A friend writes: So I’m deciding to ask an economist. It appears to me that the oil companies are really just gouging the...
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“Fight of the Century: Keynes vs. Hayek Round Two” is the superb and very timely sequel to the phenomenally successful and insightful, rap video pitting the views of macroeconomist John Maynard Keynes against those of Austrian School economist Friedrich A. Hayek, “Fear the Boom and Bust.” The original has attracted to date more than...
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