Author Archives: ffwiley
What an Ex-FOMC Governor Really Wants to Tell You about the Fed
Hunting season is off to a good start this week, and I’m not just talking about deer hunting. It seems that former Fed officials declared open season on their ex-colleagues. First, Andrew Huszar, who once ran the Fed’s mortgage buying … Continue reading
M.C. Escher and the Impossibility of the Establishment Economic View
It’s easy to show that public institutions such as the Federal Reserve and Congressional Budget Office (CBO) are routinely blindsided by economic developments. You only need to compare their past predictions to real events to see these organizations’ deficiencies. More … Continue reading
The Truth About “If You Like Your Plan, You Can Keep Your Plan”
Bit by bit, we’re learning more about President Obama’s broken promise that you can keep your health insurance if you like it, which was repeated at least two dozen times in recent years.
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Tagged Hannah Rappleye, if you like your plan you can keep your plan, James Taranto, JPMorgan, Lisa Myers, Obama's lies, Obamacare, policy cancellations
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An Audacious Plan to Fix the QE Non-Taper and Fiscal Non-Action in One Swift Move
If you’re anything like us, you may have reached the conclusions that: Our elected officials are charting a course to a fiscal disaster. The Fed is repeating past mistakes by setting us up for another bust. After the drama of … Continue reading
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Tagged Austrian business cycle theory, CBO projections, debt ceiling debate, Eccles Building, Fed outlook, Ford House, non-tapering surprise, QE, tapering plan, ZIRP
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Niall Ferguson Shatters Paul Krugman’s Delusions
We followed the latest Paul Krugman feud – this one with Niall Ferguson – until Krugman’s tag team partner and CYNICONOMICS reader Brad DeLong entered the fray. After about a half dozen posts on Krugman and DeLong this year, we had some … Continue reading
Obamacare’s Unintended Consequences: It’s Not Just a Technology Problem
Ron Suskind’s Pulitzer Prize-winning account of Barack Obama’s first two years in office, Confidence Men, tells the inside story of the wheeling and dealing that culminated in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). According to Suskind:
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Tagged ACA, Affordable Care Act, Beige Book, Confidence Men, exchanges fiasco, fiscal risks, Health and Human Services, HHS, hiring disincentives, insurance exchanges, Jon Stewart, Kathleen Sebelius, Massachusetts state health reform, Megan McArdle, Michael Cembalest, Obamacare's unintended consequences, Ron Suskind, Stewart-Sebelius interview, Sunlight Foundation, Tyler Durden
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Fonzie or Ponzi? One Theory on the Limits to Government Debt
If you’re part of my generation and watched enough Happy Days back in the day, you know that “the Fonz” had a keen understanding of human nature. And that projecting confidence was a huge part of his alpha male badassness. … Continue reading
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Tagged America's finances, austerity, Balassone-Francese-Pace, Baum-Cecherita-Westphal-Rother, budget deficit, CBO, Cecchetti-Mohanty-Zampolli, Cecherita-Rother, Charles Ponzi, confidence trick, Congressional Budget Office, debt addiction, debt projection, debt stabilization, debt threshold, debt-to-GDP, debt-to-GDP ratio, dependency ratio, depression-like economy, Fonzie, Happy Days, Hyman Minsky, hyperinflation, Keynesian, Keynesian end game, Kumar-Woo, median household income, Ponzi finance, Ponzi point, Ponzi Scheme, primary balance, primary budget balance, real debt stabilization, Reinhart-Rogoff, The Fonz, wealth confiscation
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Yellin’ for Yellen: I Must Have Fallen Asleep and Woken Up in 2006
After reading the coverage of Janet Yellen’s Fed Chair nomination yesterday, it feels as though it’s 2006 all over again. Confidence in our central bankers seems to be approaching all-time highs, little more than five years after it collapsed alongside … Continue reading
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Tagged Alan Greenspan, asset inflation, Ben Bernanke, forward guidance, Friedman's forecasting, Galbraith, Great Moderation, Huffington Post, Janet Yellen, John Kenneth Galbraith, Justin Wolfers, Milton Friedman, Paul Volcker, QE, Ryan Grimm, the majority is always wrong, Yellen nomination, ZIRP
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Why the Debt Ceiling Debate Should Be Different This Time
Same political dysfunction. Same blue team indifference to soaring government debt. Same hypocrisy from those on the red team who helped set debt on its upward trajectory. Same lack of any serious effort to tackle the most important issue – … Continue reading
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Tagged alternative scenario, baseline scenario, BEA, Bureau of Economic Analysis, CBO, CBO statutes, Congressional Budget Office, debt projections, debt threat, Eisenhower, General Ike, Ike, long-term budget outlook, Niall Ferguson
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