How Canada Saved Its Bacon

Interesting to see that Canada's former finance minister (and prime minister) Paul Martin issuing a "stern warning" to U.S. policymakers; see here.The similarity between the current U.S. slump and what happened to Canada...

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Is the Fed missing on both sides of its dual mandate?

With the unemployment rate still above 8% and some inflation measures below 2%, many people argue that the Fed is "missing on both sides of its dual mandate;" see, for example, Fed Harms Itself By Missing Goals.Jim Bullard,...

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QE3 and Inflation Expectations

Some interesting data here on the TIPS measure of expected inflation following the Fed's QE3 announcement (courtesy of my colleague, Kevin Kliesen).The first chart shows that the announcement had a significant impact on...

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Paul Krugman's Baltic Problem

Well, since I'm writing about the K-man today, I thought I'd link up to this interesting piece by Swedish economist Anders Aslund: Paul Krugman's Baltic Problem. Seems like Krugman's little IS-LM model made a few wrong predictions too. I guess the science isn't quite a settled as he would like...

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Not enough workers to meet demand for new homes

Wow, how's that for a headline?!But it appears to be true, as Diana Olick reports here.The shortage is across the spectrum, but especially in need are framers, concrete workers, plumbers, roofers and painters. The shortage...

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Evil is the root of all money

For the love of money is the root of all evil.1 Timothy 6:10A basic question in the theory of money is "why does money exist?"  Or, put another way: where does the demand for money come from?   The phenomenon...

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