Here’s one way you can figure out if you’ve pulled the car far enough into your garage– if
you run into the wall, you went too far. Hopefully the Fed has another plan for how to decide
when to stop raising the fed funds rate.
Author Archives: econbrowser
$100 a barrel– what are the odds?
Talk about where oil prices are headed is cheap, so at least we have plenty of that. But how
seriously does the market take the various possibilities that are being bandied about by the
pundits?
Where did that huge trade deficit come from?
Some have blamed the rest of the world for the rapidly growing U.S. current account deficit.
But I believe that the true explanation is to be found here at home.
Some like it hot
California may again offer the nation a useful illustration this summer of how not to deal
with an energy crisis.
Romney’s new health care proposal
The governor of Massachusetts has some new ideas for health care that, if nothing else, may help stimulate public discussion of the problem and our options for dealing with it.
How high do oil prices have to rise before demand actually falls?
That was the question that a reporter from Reuters asked me this morning. Here is what I answered.
GM auto sales strong in June
One feature of past oil shocks that contributed to an economic downturn was a sudden change in consumers’ car purchases. But the latest indications are that U.S. automakers so far at least are not experiencing the same kind of problem this time around.
Can anything slake China’s thirst for oil?
If China’s oil demand keeps growing at its current rate, it could produce some real problems. But I see a number of reasons to expect that the growth will slow down significantly.
Concerns about the latest Social Security proposal
Having raised public awareness about the longer term challenges of funding Social Security, the Republicans now ride boldly to the rescue with– a new accounting gimmick. To the extent that it amounts to anything more than that, I’m a little worried.
A supreme mistake
Count me among those disgusted with the Supreme Court’s ruling against Susette Kelo, which
asserted the right of the government to seize her home in order to divert the property to what
it judged to be a use of higher economic value.