As you may know, the actual Phillips Curve is about the relationship between unemployment and wage inflation. That’s the relationship A.W. Phillips actually identified, and it’s still the cor...
https://www.themoneyillusion.com/immigration-wages-and-the-phillips-curve/
1. Commenter Floccina directed me to a video showing Matt Yglesias’s ideal city. 2. A back issue of Harpers had an article discussing the possibility of legalizing drugs. This comment caught my...
You: What do you think of the Gaza situation? Me: That’s the problem. You: What do you mean? I asked for your view on the situation. Me: My view is that the question you asked is the problem. T...
https://www.themoneyillusion.com/the-question-is-the-problem/
1. Tyler linked to an interesting article on Portugal. This caught my eye: Then, in 2023, the Immigration Control Agency was dissolved, ostensibly in response to an extremely uncharacteristic dis...
Eventually, I’ll get to price indices. But first, a long boring digression on why I don’t want to be “rich” (but do want to have a billion dollars.) I recently read a WSJ story about how ...
Americans remind me of the old song “Yes, we have no bananas”. They really, really like to agree with the assertions in poll questions. Should pot be legalized? Yes!! Should people selling po...
https://www.themoneyillusion.com/yes-we-have-no-core-values/
The future course of the economy always involves a bit of guesswork. But it seems to me that the following two claims are pretty likely to be true: 1. Over the past three years, monetary policy h...
The Financial Times has a story that points to some disturbing features of South African politics: It is the kind of fervent devotion that has driven a wave of support for the former president a...
https://www.themoneyillusion.com/is-african-politics-inferior-to-american-politics/
In a recent post, I listed 6 ways that Trump intends to reduce inflation: Trump has a 6-part plan to bring down inflation: 1. Favors NIMBY policies to prevent housing construction in the suburb...
During the golden age of macroeconomics (roughly 1984-2007), many economists understood that interest rates were not monetary policy. After 2008, economists have been drifting back to old-school ...