The autumn of 2010 is in some ways a replay of what we saw last spring. Is what we saw then a guide to what’s going to happen next?
And This Is Going to Lead to High Inflation?
Peak oil in Pennsylvania
Here I pass along a few items on the early history of the oil industry that I found interesting.
Core at Zero
At least, month-on-month. Three month annualized inflation — either PCE or CPI — both under 0.5%:
The Fed’s communication problem
The start of the FOMC’s November meeting is described in the minutes released yesterday as follows:
The meeting opened with a short discussion regarding communicating with the public about monetary policy deliberations and decisions. Meeting participants supported a review of the Committee’s communication guidelines with the aim of ensuring that the public is well informed about monetary policy issues while preserving the necessary confidentiality of policy discussions until their scheduled release. Governor Yellen agreed to chair a subcommittee to conduct such a review.
Here I provide some suggestions for Governor Yellen’s subcommittee to consider.
Representative Ryan Requests
And Barry Eichengreen anticipates with an answer
Answering the bunnies
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.
Assessing Fantasy Scenarios
With the EGTRRA/JGTRRA extensions and proposals for tax reform and debt reduction flying left and right, I think it behooves us to review what the theoretical (well, actually undergraduate textbook) literature and the empirical assessments suggest will be the impact of tax rate changes. I want to devote special attention to the hypothesis that there will be large dis-incentive effects on high income households should their tax rates go up, with correspondingly large negative ramifications for overall economic activity.
Billion prices project
Justin Lahart is among those calling attention to the Billion Prices Project of MIT Professors Roberto Rigobon and Alberto Cavallo.
Cut the Deficit!
The New York Times has provided a neat interactive graphic that allows one to see how various proposals affect the budget deficit in 2015 and 2030, here.