Author Archives: John Lounsbury

February 2013 New Home Sales Growth Were At 14 Month Lows

Written by John Lounsbury and Steven Hansen New home sales data for February 2013 was definitely much worse than last month’s data. We are now seeing one terrible month, and one good month. If one uses a 3 month rolling … Continue reading

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Stephanie Kelton Lecture on Sectoral Balances and the Fiscal Cliff

The following lecture was given by Stephanie Kelton, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri Kansas City to the New America Foundation / Economic Growth Program / Economists for Peace and Security in Washington, DC, 13 November 2012.  … Continue reading

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The Great Debate©: Did Fannie and Freddie Cause the Great Financial Crisis?

The Neville Awards Case Against Fannie and Freddie Written by John Lounsbury The Neville Awards is a website that has collected published media reports and opinion about the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in creating the Great Financial … Continue reading

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The Great Debate©: Deficits, Robert J. Samuelson vs. William K. Black

Introduction to the Debate by John Lounsbury Robert J. Samuelson, opinion writer at The Washington Post, believes that both presidential candidates are avoiding addressing the U.S. budget problems and are misleading the American public.  Prof. William K. Black, University of … Continue reading

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Great Debate©: Which Presidential Ticket Deserves to Lose?

Introduction Written by John Lounsbury The following two essays are written from the point of view of which presidential ticket is more deserving to win, based on the facts of what they have done, what they have failed to do … Continue reading

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The Great Debate©: Is Ryan a Good VP Choice?

Written by John Lounsbury and Fabius Maximus The Support for Paul Ryan by John Lounsbury As editor of GEI I do not want to make this part of the debate about my political ideas and preferences. Therefore this side of … Continue reading

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The Great Debate©: Who Saw it Coming?

by John Lounsbury This edition of The Great Debate© is prompted by an essay from Brad DeLong today (30 June 2012) and a rebuttal from Steve Keen.  Before we present those two protagonists we will return to a paper published … Continue reading

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The Great Debate©: Regulate or Restrict Banking Activities?

Written by John Lounsbury There are at least three schools of thought on what the correct policy direction for the banking industry should be. Two of them are in the title: (1) Tighten regulation of banking activities, or (2) restrict … Continue reading

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Shortage of Apartments Will Not Create a Building Boom

Written by John Lounsbury Today (April 6) GEI News has an article reporting that apartment vacancies are near an all-time low.  With all the talk about a housing glut this may come as a surprise.  It’s worth a trip through … Continue reading

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Abba Lerner: Functional Finance

Written by John Lounsbury Abba Lerner (1903-1982) was not considered a dominant figure in American economics for much of his career although he collaborated and exchanged ideas with many more famous economists of his time.  He studied under Friedrich Hayek … Continue reading

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Foreclosure Problem Still Has 2/3 to Run

With the announcement of the Mortgage Abuses Settlement agreement this past week many have suggested the event would mark the increase of a flood of backlogged foreclosure filings.  In view of those opinions it seems a good time to review … Continue reading

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Employment: Return of the Great Oscillation

With the good news Friday from the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) in the Employment Situation Report for January 2012, it is worthwhile to look at a few graphs that give some perspective. The first comes from Chart Of The … Continue reading

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The Great Debate©: The Job Guarantee Brouhaha

by Hugo Heden and John Lounsbury John Carney, a senior editor at CNBC.com, has been writing a series of articles about the job guarantee (JG) aspect of what is known as Modern Monetary Theory(MMT). The JG is also known as … Continue reading

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Stocks and Employment: Long-term Relationships

According to the classical economists David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill and others, there are three components of capitalistic economies: land, labor capital and financial capital.  In this article we will focus on the second and the third. Here are two … Continue reading

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Real Household Income

Preliminary examination of demographic data cannot explain much of the rise in real household income in the 1980s and 1990s. Continue reading

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Private Investment: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Private investment is low. Executives are conflicted: They regretted missed investment opportunities and yet they also had risk averse attitudes. Productivity is falling off a cliff with no dividend to labor as well. Continue reading

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Unemployment Claims and Job Losses

The current behavior of net job gains each month at current WIUC levels is consistent with further declines in WIUC to come. Continue reading

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Christopher Magee Interview: Impressions of Singapore

Prof. Christopher Magee, MIT, discusses his experiences in helping to establish a technical university in Singapore. Continue reading

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Housing Inventory: Hard and Soft Shadows

The “soft shadow” inventory in residential real estate is larger than the total of current inventory and the “hard” shadow. Resolution of the soft inventory is uncertain; it depends on how the economy goes in the coming years. If the recovery continues to bypass Main Street (read that as employment), a significant amount of soft shadow will enter the active inventory. In an improving economy a significant part of the soft shadow will simply fade away. Continue reading

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The Great Debate©: Does QE Prevent Recession or Cause It?

Brad DeLong maintains that QE is essential to support the economy while solvency issues are being resolved and is the way to avoid a serious deflationary depression. James Grant argues that the liquidity produced by QE, combined with ZIRP (zero interest rate policy), has the result of destroying the the financial integrity of the saver while producing further asset bubbles. He says that the collapse of the new bubbles will create a new recession. Continue reading

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