Opinion Forum

Cargo Cult Economics

December 18th, 2010

By Brianna Aubin Pretend that you are on a desert island with six other people. One guy hunts, another fishes, a third collects firewood, the fourth hauls water, the fifth gathers fruits and vegetables, the sixth builds huts, and you … eat. Yes, that’s right. Your job is eating. You pick up seashells off the beach, and […]

Articles written by Brianna Aubin
Tags: cargo cult, Federal Reserve, Keynesian, money, productivity, value
Categories: Economics, Politics | Comments (12) | Home

The Fed, the QE, and the Ben Bernank

November 23rd, 2010

By Tom Carter Thanks to Rob at Wind Rose Hotel for finding a great explanation of how the Federal Reserve works, what the Quantitative Easing is, and how the Ben Bernank fits into everything. After watching the video everyone will finally understand what’s going on. Well, maybe everyone except economists — they’re still trying to […]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Ben Bernanke, deflation, Federal Reserve, inflation, QE, Quantitative Easing
Categories: Economics, Humor, Politics | Comments (9) | Home

The December Spending Spree

December 29th, 2009

By Brianna Aubin At the beginning of the month, the White House held a jobs summit in order to discuss the record levels of unemployment. The Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business were not invited (who needs business organizations at a jobs conference?). Paul Krugman was. Why is this important? Two […]

Articles written by Brianna Aubin
Tags: deficit, Federal Reserve, inflation, Krugman, money supply, spending, TARP
Categories: Economics, News, Politics | Comments (2) | Home

The Debt Economy

December 5th, 2009

By Brianna Aubin I remember once that I was writing a comment to an online newspaper article when I needed to reference the national debt figure, so I went surfing for one of the debt clock websites. I promptly found one of those Java clocks that update the debt by the second, and used the […]

Articles written by Brianna Aubin
Tags: debt, deficit spending, dollar, Federal Reserve, inflation
Categories: Economics, History, Politics | Comments (10) | Home

The Hidden Tax

December 1st, 2009

By Brianna Aubin Imagine that there are 100 people in the economy, and each person is in possession of $10. That would create an economy with a total M0 money supply of $1000 (M0 is the amount of hard currency and bank notes in circulation in an economy). Now imagine that a money fairy swept […]

Articles written by Brianna Aubin
Tags: central bank, Federal Reserve, inflation, money supply, purchasing power
Categories: Economics, History, Politics | Comments (3) | Home