Peter Diamond on Fiscal Policy and Unemployment

Nobel Prize winner Peter Diamond has a video on the Economist web page about the fiscal policy situation and the on-going unemployment problem.

Tyler Cowen on Productivity

If there is a reasonable voice on the free market side of the economics debate these days it is Tyler Cowen. His insights and ideas are where the Keynesian counter-balance should be - unfortunately it is not. He has a good piece in the New York Times on the declines in American productivity and what it could mean to the economy. Evidence that Cowen is a good counter-balance? How about the quote, "Keynesians argue that the economy is suffering from a lack of spending or too little "aggregate demand". That is a valid point, but...." How often do you hear that in economic debate these days?

Economics and Children's Stories

Motoko Rich of the New York Times has a good article about finding economics in children's stories.

Tyler Cowen on Stagnation

In an Economist Video - Tyler Cowen, who wrote "The Great Stagnation" on structural issues - such as firing bad teachers.

Rogoff - learning to like inflation

Ken Rogoff has come out strong in calling for higher inflation to get the economy moving. His thought is to move he target to 2-4%. Below is a video from the PBS Newshour where Rogoff is on a panel with Paul Krugman saying the same thing.

Watch the full episode. See more PBS NewsHour.

Bruce Bartlett - Its Aggregate Demand!

Bruce Bartlett has a post in the New York Times Economix blog about how the root of the current crisis is Aggregate Demand (The only news in this is that Bartlett use to work for Ron Paul, Jack Kemp and George Bush). Basically, he is calling for the Fed to increase the money supply - that inflation is the lesser of evils right now. However, the post does have some good number on money supply, velocity, and the relationship between asset prices and demand (wealth effect). Could be good to use with students.

Federal Revenues, Spending and Debt - Charts

Uwe Reinhardt has a post in the New York Times Economix blog about the Federal ratings downgrade that has some good charts on the comparisons of Federal revenue to deficits and about the size of the debt. Here they are:

Debts around the world

Speigel online has the following graphic of national debts around the world - good visual for getting students talking about debt size. Would be better if it had information about the size of GDP in each nation.