A cartoon has been making the rounds (e.g., Forbes, Zero Hedge, and Real Clear Politics) in which cartoon characters (bunnies maybe? or perhaps some other life form) ask questions about quantitative easing. I would have provided slightly different answers than did the didactic character in the cartoon, so I thought it might be fun to interject myself as a third character in the bunnies’ conversation.
Author Archives: James_Hamilton
Billion prices project
Justin Lahart is among those calling attention to the Billion Prices Project of MIT Professors Roberto Rigobon and Alberto Cavallo.
Commodity inflation
I guess now we know that the Fed has the tools to prevent deflation.
Gold standard discussion
The New York Times hosts a discussion of the proposal by World Bank President Robert Zoellick for an international monetary system that uses the price of gold as a reference.
Current economic conditions
Things look slightly cheerier than they did a month ago. But that’s not saying much.
QE2: Been there, done that
The Federal Open Market Committee announced today that:
the Committee decided today to expand its holdings of securities. The Committee will maintain its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its securities holdings. In addition, the Committee intends to purchase a further $600 billion of longer-term Treasury securities by the end of the second quarter of 2011, a pace of about $75 billion per month.
Election spin
Arnold Kling notes that exit polls show that 52% of those who voted have an unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party and 53% have an unfavorable opinion of the Republican Party. Arnold comes up with this conclusion:
People with an unfavorable view of Democrats went 88-10 for Republicans, but people with an unfavorable view of Republicans only went 76-22 Democrat.
That was the difference in the election. The “unfavorables” on net broke Republican. The way I would spin it is that there is a large block of voters who are negative on both parties, the Republicans captured a larger share of that block, and that block swung the election.
Links for 2010-10-31
Some quick links on the flash crash, China’s rare earth elements monopoly, Larry Summers, and economics at UCSD.
Another disappointing GDP report
The U.S. economy managed to keep growing in the third quarter, but well below what’s needed for a normal economic recovery.
Negative real interest rates
What message should we take from negative real interest rates?