Skip to content →

Month: October 2012

Of Terror, the IMF, Keynes, and the Fiscal Multiplier

OCTOBER 17, 2012 – Thursday October 11, International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director Christine Lagarde said that both Greece and Spain should slow down their cuts to government spending. Well, not exactly. Her exact words were: “time is of the essence, meaning that instead of frontloading heavily, it is sometimes better, given circumstances and the fact that many countries at the same time go through that same set of policies with a view to reducing their deficit, it is sometimes better to have a bit more time” (Lagarde 2012). On its face, this makes little sense. But after wading through…

Comments closed

The colour line in the U.S. presidential election

OCTOBER 15, 2012 – In the run-up to the November 2 presidential election in the United States, polls are indicating an almost evenly divided electorate. As of this writing, support for President Barack Obama was standing just above 46%, support for Republican challenger Mitt Romney just above 47% (RealClearPolitics). Given these figures, imagine entering a room of 200 randomly chosen U.S. voters, with people sitting at tables by party-affiliation, but with no table signs to indicate which party-table was which. To avoid a night of tea-party polemics, you might reasonably wish to find a table of Obama supporters, and you…

2 Comments