If you think you’re worse off now, you’re right and not alone

I put this article from yesterday’s NYTimes in the comments section of my thread yesterday. I’m not sure every one read it so I thought I’d front page it. It’s on the increasing poverty and median income declines in the U.S. as reported by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) and [...]

The Markets sell the Governator Short

I was looking for just the right twist of irony sprinkled over my reality today. Bloomberg.com served it to me shaken, not stirred, with a delightful, tangy twist. Do you remember our discussions of those not so obscure derivatives called Credit Default Swaps? They’re basically the Wall Street version of a [...]

Dismal Economists: Getting Real on those Green Shoots

I’ve been concerned about the lack of real evidence for the administration’s green shoot hypothesis. It seems that I’m not the only one. A new Wall Street Journal Poll shows that Americans are increasingly ‘wary’ of the deficit and Obama’s economic intervention as Obama’s poll number’s slip.
But the poll suggests Mr. Obama [...]

Should Markets Respect Societal Bounds?

As you know, I frequently rely on the British press for news and political analysis.  I was delighted to find a link on Dr. Mark Thoma’s Economist’s View to the BBC’s broadcasts of the Riech Lectures for 2009.   Dr. Michael Sandel, Harvard Professor of Government,  delivers four lectures on the prospects of a new politics [...]

Narro Math?

I never thought about math much until I found out, some where around 12 or so, that girls weren’t supposed to be good at it.  Ever the tomboy,  I just had to prove them wrong and I’ve frequently been the only woman (and definitely the only American woman) in advanced math classes at university.  [...]

Women and the Great Recession

A colleague of mine sent me a link to the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College where they do a lot of research on Gender Equality and Economic Issues. The Institute’s Rania Antonopoulos has just released a very interesting study on The Current Economic and Financial Crisis:
A Gender Perspective. It is an interesting addition to [...]

Heaven has Fjords

When ever I hear folks rant and rave on the evils of European Social Democracies and how horrid they are, I always ask them to name the country that comes up consistently with the highest literacy rates in the world, lowest infant mortality, and much higher the the USA GDP per capita, and at the [...]

A Short Treatise on Economic Development and the Role of Culture

Another little essay from my bag of tricks, hopefully this one is easier to grok than the last
Recently, economic development literature has stopped presupposing the existence of formal institutions like property rights and rule of law.  It now examines the norms or social values that promote exchange, savings, and investment.  This new line of research [...]