I'm at the annual economics conference in San Francisco. I've been going to these things, on and off, since I was a grad student in the early 1980s. Because of the combination of the financial crisis and the new president,...

I've read through all the comments on my previous post, and I wanted to see if I could respond to some of them. In particular, a lot of people objected to me calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme. Other people...

The latest news out of Asia is not good. On December 26 the Japanese government announced that factory output fell by more than 8% in November, the biggest drop in 55 years. Toyota—now the world’s largest automaker-- expects to report...

(This is the first in a series on technology and the crisis) In the aftermath of the Madoff implosion, quite a few people have pointed out the parallels between a Ponzi scheme and Social Security. Arnold Kling, whom I respect,...

The failures in the domestic auto industry really are a big cause of our trade problems. Take a look at this graph, which shows the cumulative merchandise trade deficit of the U.S. since 2000. Astoundingly, the auto trade deficit is...

I've taken a ten-day break from posting, but now I'm refreshed and ready to go. Let's warm up with something light and easy: The Yankees. For full transparency, I was a New York Mets fan growing up, so I never...

Here is a portion of a statement issued today by Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox: Since Commissioners were first informed of the Madoff investigation last week, the Commission has met multiple times on an emergency basis to seek...

I just did a story arguing that deflation might help economic recovery. Here's a piece: Is price deflation a sign of an accelerating economic downturn? History is not encouraging. Periods with falling prices—consider Japan in the 1990s and the Great...

I've written a new piece here on Madoff and the "fundamental fallacy of the global economy." Here's the beginning of it: For years, Bernie Madoff, all-around nice guy, pulled billions of dollars of foreign and domestic money into his investment...

So far this financial crisis has been marked by an unsatisfying search for a scapegoat or villain. So far Congress and the press have tried to pin the "villain" label on Wall Street investment banks, credit-ratings agencies, mortgage brokers, and...

The answer: 13,920, including engineering and retail. But there are 27,250 iPod-related jobs created outside the U.S. That's according to a terrific new study called "Innovation and Job Creation in a Global Economy:The Case of Apple's iPod". The authors--Greg Linden,...

I just did a piece on job growth in the intangible sector. You can find it here....

I was just reading a report by Capital Economics on a decline in Chinese exports. They wrote ....strains have been growing in the system of trade finance that underpins global trade. Industry sources report that 70% of China’s exports last...

Sorry for not posting on the job reports on Friday. I did a video and an BW.com story, and then had to pause to let it all sink in. Here's the story, with the video embedded in....

As I noted yesterday, we have now been in recession for a year, but reported real GDP has actually risen. How can that be? I've looked a bit deeper into this. One of the big problems, I think, is the...