Writing in the WSJ about a program to provide food security to India’s poor, Rupa Subramanya reveals her ideological bias in towards the end of the article: After all, if someone is offering to give you free food, why would you bother to get a job and earn income so that you can feed yourself? [...]
Former Clinton White House adviser and prominent blogger, Brad DeLong says: “We have to ask ourselves: Do we want to revive our economy, or do we want to punish the bankers?” But critics of the Geithner plan are not saying he’s being too soft on the bankers because they want to see blood. They are [...]
In my last post I attempted to make sense of the origins of the current economic crisis in the subprime mortgage debacle. In this post I look at the solutions being offered and ask: Why do we need a bailout? As explained in the last post (make sure to view the cartoon slideshow on the [...]
This post is the first of my attempts to make sense for myself of the current financial crisis. In this post I ask the question: How did we get into this mess? The simplest explanation is that encouraging people to take mortgages was the easiest way to create investment opportunities for surplus capital: The result [...]
I forget where I read that looking at how often the word “recession” appears in the newspaper is as good a method as any of determining whether we are actually in a recession or not, it might have been the Left Business Observer, but I after seeing the word pop up a few times recently, [...]
Speaking of Iceland … one of the coolest things about the country is how well they’ve used geothermal energy: In Iceland, there are five major geothermal power plants which produce about 26% (2006) of the country’s electricity. In addition, geothermal heating meets the heating and hot water requirements for around 87% of the nation’s housing. [...]
For those who haven’t been following, Obama’s been doing his best to alienate the progressive left. That’s resulted in him butting heads with two of my favorite people: John Edwards and Paul Krugman. And while it may result in more corporate fundraising for Obama, he’s come out looking much worse for the wear. Obama has [...]
If thou lend money to any of My people, even to the poor with thee, thou shalt not be to him as a creditor; neither shall ye lay upon him interest. (Exodus, 22:25) The key texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all very clear about the sins of lending money for interest – and [...]
From Krugman’s blog: One of the big but little-noticed economic stories of the past few years is the sharp slowdown in US productivity growth. Dean Baker and John Schmitt are on the case; their recent article is definitely worth reading. Baker and Schmidt argue that the era in which US productivity was surging ahead of [...]