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I would also add all of the Wall Street economists into this category. Nearly all of them were oblivious to the housing bubble that wrecked the economy, and they're still getting paid way more than...
View ArticleCAD Deficits Need Offsetting Budget Deficits
When you run a trade deficit, the private sector needs offsetting budget deficits to keep the private sector in balance and prevent a loss of net private savings. So a -5% of GDP CAD needs a -5% of GDP...
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Yep the latest richness is that they're now asking people who CAUSED the financial crisis for solutions on curing long-term unemployment. My guess is that the best advice those guys can give is: Do a...
View ArticleMexico
Dean, can you write a column about Mexico? The one you wrote about Thomas Friedman was helpful but there was a one in the WSJ claiming 7 percent GDP growth which seems like utter folly, especially...
View ArticleHas not the economy of Germany looked artificially good in the recent past?
If the current account deficits of Greece, Portugal and Spain were largely with Germany, then the German economic strength of 2003 to 2008 is overstated. Did not Germany and France, in effect, loan...
View ArticleGermany
John Wright, Germany has looked pretty good because they have been running large current account surpluses for some years. I don't think that means their economic strength is overstated, but it simply...
View ArticleCan you explain more about the sudden price rises in Southern Europe?
As someone who has frequently worked and traveled in Spain over the past 20 years, I observed the rapid rise of prices there after the adoption of the Euro. I assumed, however, as did Spaniards, that...
View ArticleMore on Germany
My suggestion is that Germany's past current account surpluses could be written down to account for the bad debt the German banks have with the PIIG countries that provided earlier current account...
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John Wright, Can't we drop the PIIGS acronym? Isn't its usage the old blame the victim of the crime trick? In fact, hasn't its enthusiastic embrace by the Media and other "experts" (see Seydl's...
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Germany has taken advantage of the formation of the euro, relatively strongly going into the introduction of the currency and seemingly taking full advantage of that heretofore and now:...
View ArticleBoys and Girls at the ECB
"high paying jobs and plush pensions. See, the modern economy does offer good-paying jobs for people without skills." The modern economy that was not unique in this aspect. History offers hints that...
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My URL got zapped -- here it is: [url]http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/23/business/global/23charts.html?_r=0[/url] - Philip F.
View ArticleMust Be that Meritocracy Everybody Tells Us So Much About
The ECB brigade and their counterparts at the Fed or the Bank of England have all the right credentials! What more could you ask for? They make large sums of money. Many were already wealthy. As Andre...
View Articlethis is not news
Krugman several years ago said that real wages in Greece were like 25% too high, and that they had to fall back to earth to get growth stimulated again. His simple argument was that Greeks were not as...
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