As we wind down toward a holiday weekend, here are some links that I’ve found interesting in the past few days.
- In the “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss” category, we have a few stories of prominent people looking at new roles. Bill Clinton? The next senator from New York? I’d say it’s unlikely, but possible. As pointed out, an interesting change of gender roles, where the husband gets appointed to fill out the wife’s term. Next, Chris Matthews may be looking at Arlen Specter’s seat (note that I skipped any of the obvious “Hardball” jokes there). Again, unlikely but possible. Finally, where does Dick Holbrooke fit? Special Envoy to the Middle East sounds good to me. (thanks to Flan for the Clinton link
- Three(!) items on John Maynard Keynes too. First, Krugman letting us know that one of Keynes’s early essays is now available–this one before he had developed his general theory. Worth a read. Second, here is Keynes’s Open Letter to Roosevelt, as published in the NY Times in 1933. Again, this is before his General Theory (which he published in 1936), but it’s clear that he’s already developing many of the ideas–notably how expansion of government spending is so important to helping the national economy. Finally, an economist interpreting a letter to Roosevelt in 1938. Very interesting. Remember, this is now after his General Theory was published, and after some of the new deal spending had started to have an effect. 1938 was actually when Roosevelt listened to those who were calling for “restraint,” and the economy actually slowed its recovery.
- A bonus historical article by John Kenneth Galbraith. When a recession hits, don’t panic. Good advice, methinks.
- A few different people try to answer the question: “How much does creating a job cost?” First, Greg Mankiw calculates that $700 billion for 2.5 million jobs makes it $280,000/job. He says that sounds unreasonable. Over at Economist’s View, there’s a much deeper analysis of how much it actually costs to create a job. It’s pretty interesting to see the numbers actually get run and how government spending can actually affect things.
- Three angry posts on the Citigroup bailout. Nobody really seems to like it. Krugman calls it an outrage. Economist’s View has quite the lineup of economists talking about how bad the whole thing is. Also, Economist’s View wrote a more general idea on designing a bank bailout that might work. Finally, Brad DeLong wonders in great deal about the whole structure of Citi.
- If the Fed is confusing Krugman, how do the rest of us have a chance?
- Brad DeLong is angry. Economics is really complicated, and if journalists who write about it don’t know what they’re talking about, it’s not helping the general public understand.
- We’ll end today with a few foreign policy links. The middle east and Afghanistan get more of the press, but there are other places where the US has interests. Next, an argument that we need to get away from the left-right spectrum when talking about foreign policy.
Last but not least, from GraphJam (via Andrew Sullivan)
