By Richard Posner's math...On August 25th he wrote, regarding Dr. Romer's August 6 speech:

The figure of $60 billion of $61 billion is too high. According to recovery.gov, the $61 billion figure is as of last week--seven weeks after the end of the second quarter. Since the rate of stimulus expenditures is said to be accelerating, the number for the second quarter is undoubtedly significantly lower. This makes the $40 billion in tax relief all the more important to Romer's argumente And if that figure consisted of actual rebate checks, or reductions in current withholding, then of course it should be included in the total outlays of the stimulus program. But in fact very little of it consists of rebates, which is why it is not recorded on the government's website as stimulus money spent and is why Romer should not have said that by the end of

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In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, Martin Feldstein, Ronald Reagan’s top economist and a Harvard professor, claims the current health care proposals are all about rationing.  I have to disagree. Excerpts from his article are below, along with my critique. "Although administration officials are eager to deny it, rationing health care is central to President Barack Obama's health plan. The Obama strategy is to reduce health costs by rationing the services that we and future generations of patients will receive. "The White House Council of Economic Advisers issued a report in June explaining the Obama Administration's goal of reducing projected health spending by 30% over the next two decades. That reduction would be achieved by eliminating 'high cost, low-value treatments' by 'implementing a set of performance measures that all providers would adopt' and by 'directly targeting individual providers . . . (and other) high-end outliers.'" First and ...

In today's Economix post, Casey Mulligan argues that the greater than predicted unemployment numbers should not be ascribed to the negative effect of the stimulus, but rather to bigger than anticipated negative shocks.

We cannot blame the Obama administration for failing to predict June's 9.5 percent unemployment rate. That result just shows the size of the shocks hitting the economy: Even the best forecasters can miss the unemployment rate by almost two percentage points, even when forecasting fewer than six months ahead.

That makes sense, and is in line with my previous post. But he then argues that since we’ve seen little stimulus effect so far, we should cancel the stimulus, since it'd be costly on a per-job basis (and in any case, he believes the effect on GDP to be small [1]). These are interesting assertions meriting further analysis.

Stock-Flow Mismatch

We're all free to use whatever multipliers we

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I thought that I had a pretty good handle on how much “stimulus” money Congress and the Fed have spent so far, ranging, as it does, in the zillions of dollars…

So I was taken aback when Addison Wiggin of Agora Financial wrote, “$7.2 trillion is a lot of money. That’s what D.C. has poured into ‘our’ bailout so far.” Wow!

Trying to keep from peeing my pants in horror, I think to myself, “Hell yeah, that’s a lot of money… Because it is roughly half of everything this country makes in a year! Half of American GDP!” which, unfortunately, ended in “P”, which sounds like “pee”, which was just enough of a subliminal suggestion that… Well, never mind.

But if creating that much money is not enough to scare the piss out of you, too, then consider it just a Mogambo Warm-Up Test (MWUT) to see if

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Here’s some free advice to Prime Minister John Key. I’m being a bit cheeky here, but it’s advice that’s well meant and genuine.

I’ve met Key a couple of times and was always impressed with how much he “got” New Zealand and wanted to do the right thing for the country in the long term. Sometimes I’ve worried that Key is too tactical and reactive to issues, rather than proactive and strategic. But I’ve also been impressed at how sometimes he has taken a bold decision that surprises everyone. Let’s hope he surprises us again with a strategic message that is realistic and encourages us all (including the government) to do the right thing: to spend less, to save more and to invest more.

Dear John,

Please tell us the truth about the economy and what it means for our standards of living. Tell us what we need to do as a nation

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Research released last Friday from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index reveals that the downward trend in overall well-being appears to be cushioned when workers experience a positive work environment; one where they get to use their strengths, and where their supervisors create a trusting environment. In the first six

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by Edward Hugh: BarcelonaRussia's inflation rate remained tantalisingly frozen at its highest in more than five years in June as energy and food prices continued to move on upwards. Russian consumer prices were up 15.1 percent from a year ago - matching the rate in May- according to data released earlier this week by the Federal Statistics Service.As a result he Russian government is struggling to bring inflation down towards it's 10.5 percent target after increased income from rising global energy prices boosted domestic demand and made possible 300 billion rubles ($13 billion) of extra government spending on items like pensions and state wages in the run up to last December's elections. The result has been a massive surge in consumer spending and construction activity which has pushed the rate of expansion in the Russian economy above its long ...

Russia's inflation rate remained tantalisingly frozen at its highest in more than five years in June as energy and food prices continued to move on upwards. Russian consumer prices were up 15.1 percent from a year ago - matching the rate in May- according to data released earlier this week by the Federal Statistics Service.As a result he Russian government is struggling to bring inflation down towards it's 10.5 percent target after increased income from rising global energy prices boosted domestic demand and made possible 300 billion rubles ($13 billion) of extra government spending on items like pensions and state wages in the run up to last December's elections. The result has been a massive surge in consumer spending and construction activity which has pushed the rate of expansion in the Russian economy above its long term "comfort" capacity level.

In

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