Most of the NYT’s recent coverage of the subprime mess focused on Greenspan and the Federal Reserve System.
The bears must wait another quarter
Currently available data on consumer spending make it very unlikely that we’ll see negative real GDP growth for the fourth quarter.
Earning excess returns
Mark Thoma calls attention to this Washington Post article by Wharton Professor Dean Foster and Oxford Professor Peyton Young:
Make that Four Reasons Why Recession May be Averted
Sudeep Reddy provides five reasonsWhy Economists Are Betting A Recession Won’t Happen. These reasons are ably summarized in the WSJ Real Time Economics Blog post Five Reasons Recession May Be Averted:
Wikipedia page on Oil Megaprojects
Stuart Staniford and colleagues continue to provide a great service for the rest of us in compiling the facts about new oil discoveries.
An Exercise in Sheer Conjecture
China, PPP, and Misalignment Estimates
Monetary policy using the asset side of the Fed’s balance sheet
An interesting trend has developed in the Federal Reserve’s asset holdings, a trend that the newly created term auction facility is designed to accelerate.
Do We Know a Trend is a Trend?
As the U.S. economy goes into a downturn, we are going to be reminded that extrapolating trends is a hazardous enterprise. For instance, linear extrapolation of tax receipts (expressed as a share of GDP) is probably something that one should be wary of doing. And yet, as shown in some comments on previous posts (see here and here), there seems to be too much belief in what ocular regressions can tell one.
Term auction facility
Will a new, improved discount window solve our problems?
A curious market reaction
I’m trying to make sense of the strong reactions to yesterday’s action from the Federal Reserve.