New Year’s Resolution

It’s traditional to have New Year’s Resolutions, and who am I to break with tradition? Something I clearly need to do is to clean up my Web presence – it’s quite a mess. I’m happy with my Shared Google Reader Page – my intellectual in-box that lets me share interesting stuff with you. But my Web site needs some straightening up and my supporting documentation is really a mess. So, without waiting for the New Year, I’ve done a fair bit of analysis and I have a plan. I’ll be rolling out the changes over the coming weeks. As a start, I’ve updated my Web site home page. Hopefully my hodge podge of stuff will benefit from better structure.

Light Holiday Reading

My Shared Reader Page is showing only light activity, but I have added a couple of good economics posts. I’m taking advantage of the light activity and holiday down time to read (or re-read) more of Mises’s writings. I think I will be unleashed by 2009.

Corruption, Hope, Stimulus, and Hazards

My Shared Reader Page continues to collect interesting tidbits for your enjoyment:

• A discussion of corruption during the New Deal – I was disappointed that there was no reference to Lord Acton!
• A message of hope from the land of dismal science
• A Christmas cartoon which captures the spirit of the times
• A concise analysis of why fiscal stimulus is a bad idea
• An outline of the Obama team’s fiscal stimulus plan
• Megan’s examination and partial debunking of the moral hazard argument

There’s much to think about in these blog entries.

Christmas Plus One

People didn’t have much to blog about on Christmas Day and I certainly didn’t have time to read it. Nevertheless, my Shared Reader Page gathered a couple of good things to read:

• Understanding Keynes – Before you disagree, understand what he did and didn’t say (but then disagree)
• How rational are people? More than you think – but not when you think

Posting will continue to be light through the holidays.

Merry Christmas

I’m not sure how much interesting Web reading to expect today, but Christmas Eve didn’t disappoint. Some of the topics captured on my Shared Reader page were:

• Curious facts about GM
• The continuing crusade against “scientific economics”
• The comic side of mass murder
• Megan rips into a bizarre meme which is making the rounds
• An interesting argument for industrial policy

I find the last particularly intriguing since it must be balanced with the arguments against industrial policy.

Twas The Day Before Christmas

I’m liking my shared Google Reader page. I can hit a lot more subjects in the course of the day. Yesterday’s additions include:

• Much more on the continuing battle over macroeconomic theory, stimulus packages, and central banking
• Strange news for money market funds
• Skepticism regarding microfinance

More To Read

I read a lot more interesting stuff than I could ever hope to comment on. Sometimes I find I have nothing or very little to add. Usually I just don’t have the time to write about everything that I otherwise would. I’ve tried different ways of addressing this problem, but nothing has worked well.

Maybe Google has come to the rescue. Google Reader has improved the way it handles things and I see a new option for blogging. I have established a Shared Reader page. Try it! This allows me to note interesting items and share them – sometimes with brief commentary, sometimes without. In kicking this off, I noted interested pieces on such topics as a Dilbert view of management consultants, history professors who are ignorant of history, the economics of the TSA, premonitions of an economic war with China, wage deflation, growing trade barriers, a Megan analysis of various housing “solutions”, the inevitability of rent seeking, the impracticality of stimulus packages, and more.

Willy-nilly Spending

Macroeconomics depends upon some simplifying assumptions. Keynesian macroeconomics argues for government stimulus to prod the economy. Keynesian logic appears correct – it’s the assumptions that are bothersome. Greg Mankiw illustrates the problem with a clever example. His bottom line:

If the government spends a fiscal stimulus package on goods and services without much public value …, it could well stimulate the economy as measured by macroeconomic aggregates but leave the participants in the economy worse off … Avoiding this trap requires that the government spend taxpayers dollars only those items that pass a strict cost-benefit test. That is hard to do quickly. Willy-nilly spending is a good way to stimulate the economy only if the outcome is judged by the wrong metric.

Willy-nilly spending seems to describe today’ situation and the next administration’s plans. Watch out below!

Ideology – Too Much? Too Little?

Everybody’s writing about the financial crisis and the White House can never win.  Bush is accused of relying too much on ideology. He’s also accused of not having a coherent game plan, i.e. not having robust enough ideology. I bet Obama is already looking forward to his turn in the barrel.

Detroit Explained

Megan has written a comprehensive overview about the former Big Three automakers. Some key insights:

Detroit didn’t make a big profit by selling you a Ford Taurus.  It made money on financing your Ford Taurus; often, the car was sold at a loss in order to get the finance business.  The Big Three were banks manufacturing cars as a loss leader.

…

The really miserable thing is that even a total bankruptcy may not be enough.   Wipe out the shareholders, cut the bondholders to the bone, shuck the gold-plated medical benefits, toss out the UAW contracts, close the dealers–and we still may be left with companies that cannot make a profit without a now-defunct financing business based on ever-growing loans to ever-poorer credit risks.  The Big Three, with the help of the UAW and all their other partners, has spent 25 years building a reputation for poor reliability and ugly cars.  Brands matter.  Once destroyed, they’re very hard to repair in the best of times.  These are not, quite, the best of times, are they?

Read the comments too!