Sales of existing homes, as opposed to newly built homes, rose last 6.5% month. The news is covered here at MarketWatch.com: Existing-home sales rise 6.5% as prices plunge The key points to note are not the increase in sales, which is predictable given the flood of distressed [i.e. foreclosed] properties on the market at give-away […]

At last!! The NYT finally talks nationalization: Sweden’s Fix for Banks – Nationalize Them Well OK it really only talks about the Swedish experience from the 1990’s … but that’s better than nothing! Just for the record: the Swedish taxpayers made a profit on the deal when the banks in question were privatized. Just saying […]

Wow. Sometimes economists can be breathtakingly dumb. More often than not they seem to be the economists who allow ideology to creep too deeply into their ‘analysis’. Here’s today’s buffoon: Robert J. Barro: Government Spending Is No Free Lunch – WSJ.com Now this is remarkably stupid. First a short primer: the argument is about the […]