Daily Archives: November 22, 2013

JFK and Federal Budgetary Policy

By Mathew Forstater

On this, the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, we would do well to remind ourselves that another loss resulting from that fateful day was that of a progressive trend in leadership regarding federal budgetary policy.  The points are expressed so clearly they require no interpretation or commentary.
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Secular Stagnation and Sacred Neoliberal Dogma

By Dan Kervick

Brad DeLong doesn’t like what Clive Crook is saying about Larry Summers. According to DeLong:

When Larry Summers said:

Even a great bubble [first in high-tech and then in housing] wasn’t enough to produce any excess of aggregate demand…. Even with artificial stimulus to demand, coming from all this financial imprudence, you wouldn’t see any excess…

He wasn’t calling for more bubbles. He was pointing out that an economy that can only attain anything like full employment with stable inflation in a bubble is an economy with something deeply and structurally wrong with it–something that needs to be fixed.

DeLong then proceeds to lambaste Crook for his intellectual dishonesty. But Crook does not actually say Summers advocates bubbles. This is the relevant passage from Crook’s piece.

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Regulating Shadow Banking

The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) is holding a conference on shadow banking today (program here).  NEP’s own Randy Wray is on the afternoon panel.  You can watch the entire LIVESTREAM below.