The billion prices project spiders prices off the internet, and gets results broadly similar to the BLS, about thee percent per year, which surprises me, since over the last three years the BLS has been applying “hedonic adjustments” to all manner of goods where hedonic adjustment is impossible or implausible. Today’s supposedly three percent inflation as measured by the BLS is a lot higher rate of inflation than what the BLS was measuring as three percent inflation three years ago.
Archive for the ‘economics’ Category
billion prices inflation estimate
Thursday, June 23rd, 2011Philips curve, stimulus
Tuesday, June 21st, 2011If stimulus works, if Keynesianism is a good enough approximation to the modern American economy, there should be a relationship between unemployment and inflation, the Philips curve. Higher unemployment should lead to lower inflation, and vice versa.
There is no relationship.
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Philips curve
McConnell tells Obama he can stick it in a little bit
Monday, June 20th, 2011House Republican leader McConnell tells Obama he can stick it into the Republicans just a little bit, but not all the way, and must stop if it starts to hurt. (more…)
Actual Greek riots
Friday, June 17th, 2011Last year the riots were entirely fake, astroturf government rioters theatrically engaging in pretend conflict with government police. This time, there was some fake violence, and some quite real violence. (more…)
Entryism goes public
Wednesday, June 15th, 2011The SEIU is a far left organization, far far further to the left than any elected Democrat will admit to being. It is the voice of the state organized as political interest group. It has always been a major force backing “moderate” Republicans. (more…)
Probability of fiat collapse
Monday, June 13th, 2011I observe that people are still buying and selling long term corporate bonds at prices that indicate low inflationary expectations.
On the other hand, total value of world gold is about fifteen trillion dollars, which indicates a lot of people expecting partial or total collapse of fiat money (more…)
What would have happened if no bailout in 2008?
Thursday, June 9th, 2011A golden oldie on the minority mortgage meltdown
Wednesday, June 8th, 2011Ann Coulter rarely gives links, and frequently employs hyperbole and humorous exaggeration, so when she reports entirely ridiculous real events, it is difficult to be sure whether she is engaging in humorous hyperbole, or things really are that outrageous. Vdare has helpfully annotated one of her posts with links, and I have added a little more annotation. And yes, Ann Coulter was not making this up. The government really is as ludicrous as she depicts it: (more…)
Monetary growth
Tuesday, May 31st, 2011
Governor Romneycare promises to be a better Obama
Monday, May 30th, 2011Governor Romneycare is campaigning to be the Republican presidential candidate. He tells us that:
Every turnaround has three rules. Focus, focus, focus. Focus on what’s most important, devote all your energy to that which is broken. … Instead of focusing his energy on the economy he delegated the stimulus to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and they built a stimulus which grew government jobs but didn’t grow private-sector jobs. And then he went to work on his real agenda. And that was cap and trade, to raise energy costs; card check to unionise at places of employment where the employees didn’t want unions; Obamacare, where the federal government takes over health-care; and regulatory reform relating to the financial services sector, which of course scared the heck out of anybody in the financial sector. He went to work on this agenda. And virtually every aspect of his agenda increased the degree of uncertainty that existed in the employment sector.
Employment is a means to an end: We don’t need employment, we need productive employment. The only thing the government can do to enable productive employment is to stop enabling unproductive employment.
What you subsidize, you get more of. What you tax, you get less of. The taxpayer has massively subsidized the finance sector, and we now have far too many people employed in finance. Most of them need to lose their jobs. The vast majority of them need to lose their jobs. (more…)