Turmoil in Ecuador

From the Guardian, Equador’s government has declared a state of emergency after police launched a chaotic rebellion over austerity measures that cut their benefits. And Mark Weisbrot points out that we do not want to see a repeat of the U.S. response to the military coups in Honduras, The Organization of American States will convene [...]

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Medicaid: Your Economic Pain Stat of the Day

The Times reports that Medicaid added 3.7 million Americans in 2009, it’s largest single year increase ever. 1 in 6 Americans now participate in the program. The stimulus money helped the states bear some of this burden, but as it expires, this program will likely serve as dis-stimulus as states cut other areas of their [...]

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Not even the invisible hand

[photo: Drew Angerer/The New York Times] After spending a day picking vegetables on a New York farm, Stephen Colbert testified on Capitol Hill as part of a panel on legalizing undocumented workers. Colbert made a case for the worker in his characteristically satirical style. NPR provides a neat summary of highlights, which includes his reason for testifying: [...]

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Shedding Light on the Shadow Banking System

Given all of our discussion about the economic crisis, I thought it worthwhile to mention this excellent report on the shadow banking system. Published on the New York Fed’s webpage, Part I of this staff report by Z. Pozsar et al. on “Shadow Banking” is the best I have seen for a comprehensive summary – [...]

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The Pledge to America is Not a Joke

It does, however, indicate that the GOP is not serious about governance. Here’s Rodger Malcolm Mitchell: See anything wrong with these nice, safe political “pledges”? If you make the tax cuts permanent, give extra tax deductions to small business, fully fund missile defense and strengthen our border, there is no way to reduce spending to [...]

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Coverage of the ND forum

The Notre Dame Forum 2010 panel on Morals and Markets included theologian Margie Pfiel, economist Bill Evans from economics, and Doug Cassel from the Law School. The video is certainly worth checking out, and will be available starting tomorrow on the forum website. Dr. Pfiel discussed the notion of private property from the perspective of [...]

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The Global Marketplace and the Common Good

This week Tuesday, September 21, the University of Notre Dame will host its 2010 Forum. This year’s topic is the Global Marketplace and the Common Good (which, as others have pointed out, was announced at an interesting time, given the dissolution of Notre Dame’s pluralistic economics department). I’ll be tuning in to the live feed [...]

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“The field got rid of methodological self-criticism”

Newsweek has an article about how economics isn’t changing much in response to the crisis. The quote above is from Notre Dame’s own Philip Mirowski, who is no longer in an Economics department, but still an economist. His entire quote serves as a pretty good explanation of why economics isn’t changing: But one problem is that [...]

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Unsurprising News, Poverty Edition

The Census Bureau reports that 44 million Americans now live in poverty (that’s 1-in-7), an increase of 4 million from 2008. Given the high unemployment rate, this should not be surprising. Nevertheless, it is galling, because even as GDP has grown, productivity has increased, and profits have rebounded, those at the widening margins of the economy have [...]

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Warren to oversee establishment CFPA

She’s not being named the director, at least not yet, says the NYT: Ms. Warren will be named an assistant to the president…The decision does not preclude the possibility that Ms. Warren could eventually be named director, and at the least, she would play a pivotal role in deciding whom to appoint to the job [...]

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