On Bloomberg TV, David Malpass discusses gold, but doesn’t correct the moderator’s attempt to adjust the gold price for inflation.
The WSJ asks, Are we in a currency war?
On Asia Times, David Goldman suggests quantative easing is forcing increased savings, but that Obamacare is the big impediment to jobs.
The Atlas Sound Money Project reruns a 2006 Reuven Brenner and Martin Fridson article on why the Fed’s interest-rate targeting is flawed.
Cato’s Dan Mitchell chides liberal Keynesian Paul Krugman and conservative Keynesian Martin Feldstein for suggesting a major war would stimulate the economy.
On The Kudlow Report, David Goldman analyzes stock prices:
The WSJ examines Republican ideas for budget reform.
On RCM, Larry Kudlow sees bullish signs in a GOP takeover of Congress.
Boehner also made it clear that he was unhappy with the 99 Republicans who just voted -- along with most Democrats -- to pass the China trade-and-currency-protection bill. He basically said, "No, we must not go in that direction." And he believes the bill will come to nothing, in particular under Republican leadership.
Boehner understands that such a bill would take a toll on middle- and lower-income people. Indeed, a massive price increase on Chinese imports brought on by protectionist tariffs, or a whopping hike in the value of the Chinese yuan, would slam all the folks who shop at Wal-Mart and Dollar General.
John Boehner himself has a strong free-trade record, and he grasps the need for a stable dollar. When asked about the plunging dollar during the 2000s, and how higher interest rates and inflation subverted the Bush tax cuts, he nodded in agreement. Boehner seems to get it.
Also on Kudlow, Brian Wesbury discusses the GOP agenda:
The Small Business Chronicle offers a good summary of supply-side economics, except for the line about supply-side as a “complement to monetarism.”
David Goldman says: "Obamacare and associated regulatory burdens are the big problem."
ReplyDeleteUntil after the election there is really no use trying to interpret this sort of rhetoric as being helpful in any way. It's strictly political. After the election when Obamacare doesn't go away because nobody can make it go away now, people like Goldman may begin to focus on realistic solutions to the problems. Realistic solutions will also contain a recognition that regulations of many sorts aren't going to go away either, regardless of whether we see Republican control or Dem control. Working honestly within the new and required regulations is what people like Goldman will need to get used to. There is just no way that proper and sensible regulations are going to do any harm to doing business but that won't be admitted to until the politics are out of it a little. And when the Republicans make the changes to Obamacare that will not change it in any real way, Goldman will learn to applaud it.