Mike Moffatt on Immigration as stimulus

I completely agree with him on this.

I have before on this blog advocated immediate (not just a 'path' to) granting of US citizenship to foreigners who graduate from a U.S. institution of higher learning with a graduate degree. I still think this makes sense, not just for short-term reasons like Mike notes, but also for long-run growth not to mention the cultural and diversity value such a policy might provide.

Selective Mankiw

Mankiw says we live in a land of make believe where economists agree on most of the important issues of the day. Hardly. I use this survey (which Mankiw I know has posted in the past) in my class when I teach macro - he just so happens to have pulled issues where economists agree on specific things. There are plenty where they don't. Either way, I for one have never put much weight behind whether or not scientists agree on this or that. ---especially when the economists you are asking all have the same mainstream bend. That just begs for bias.

How Do You Know That Our Recession Is the Worst Since The Depression?

When this happens.

Richard Lugar, Gas Taxes, and Matt Tulley of the Indy Star

Apparently Indiana Senator Richard Lugar supports a gas tax. I don't.
I take more issue with the Indianapolis Star's Matt Tully's stated opinions that he offers without data to back it up:

"In the Indianapolis area, more people were suddenly carpooling, biking to work and, imagine this, even taking the city bus. Many people began to consolidate their weekend chores into fewer trips and to cut down on unnecessary drives."

Just how many is "more?"

I provide you two datasets:
Vehicle Miles traveled (VMT) did fall by 5% from summer 2007 to summer 2008.

Gas prices rose by 40% or so from summer 2007 to summer 2008.

Lugar essentially wants to go back to where we were (in terms of VMT) a year and a half ago. Will he still think this was a good idea when gas goes back up to $3, $4 a gallon (before tax)?

Was the 5% drop in miles traveled during the period really due to just the gas price increase, or could it have been the expectations of a slowing economy as well? Is all the interest in hybrid vehicles due just to gas price increases, or could it be our general "green" consciousness is growing?

Is such a small VMT drop worth the huge price distortion and potential regressiveness during times of economic crisis? I think not. I certainly don't think we can trust our government to just cleanly and smoothly deliver the gas tax hike back in the form of payroll tax reduction etc. There's certainly no reason to think they'd do so without transferring wealth from one class of citizen to another. It's just not worth the disruption. There are less traumatic ways to support the environment.

Ponzi and Minsky, and Arnold Kling's view

And yet continued evidence in support of Hyman Minsky's theories:

"I think that what happened last fall — the drastic market behavior — just put these guys in a position, you know, the cockroaches came out of the wall"

Arnold Kling agrees Minsky may have got at least part of this whole mess right. But he questions why we should bail out the "fools" that fell for such schemes. I think perhaps he forgets that many of those "fools" were hard working Americans that were either unsophisticated investors, or indirect (but nevertheless just as effected) innocent bystanders.

Much Better

This Indiana economist seems much more reality-based than some others in the State:
http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/newsitem.asp?id=33785

As an aside, Indiana's previously eternally optimistic economist has changed his tune recently. ...literally just weeks after saying "it's [recession] going to come and go pretty quickly." ...Either that or one of the two media sources grossly misquoted him.

Republicans' odd definition of "waste"

Apparently Republicans think helping our environment is a waste:

(buidling zero-emissions coal plant that, while cost ineffective now, could be much more viable in the future)
(tax credit for hybrid purchases)
(funding for green technologies domestically and for our military)


...and they think programs to help Americans' get healthy is wasteful:
(money for smoke cessation programs)
(money for CDC and STD prevention programs)
(money for alcohol and drug cessation programs)

...
I mean I could just go on and on here! Their argument against the current stimulus is ridiculous. I'm not saying that every single spending item is closed for debate - it's not. But it seems the Republican leadership is completely unwilling to work with the arm-extending Obama administration and they are grasping at straw to convince folks that the stimulus needs to be redrawn - and wasting valuable time in doing so. Frankly, they are succeeding in this stall tactic to some degree - but that just cements in my mind just how completely ideologically and how completely un-pragmatic the Republican leadership is. And it is to everyone's detriment.