Avatar James Thomas

James Thomas

Physicist, entrepreneur, amateur economist, baker of artisanal breads, occasional public servant, hiker, sailor, collector of northern Italian wines, and trainer of a fine yellow Lab named Jessie.

Recent comments by James Thomas

  • Hopeless Unemployment

    "I have been arguing for four years that our business-cycle problems call for more aggressively expansionary monetary and fiscal policies"

    The problem is not that monetary policy has been insufficiently aggressive, it is that expansionary policies in the post Glass-Steagall period are not having the desired effects. Commercial banks no longer need to make traditional loans in order to earn money - now there are quicker avenues. ZLB funds simply improve bank incomes, they do not move capital into the market as they once did.

  • Fiddling at the Fire

    @Mark Pitts

    Good comments by what measure?

    Anyone who believes that the US economy is now or soon will be growing at 3.5% is delusional. The world economy is, if anything, cooling rather than warming.

    In fact I did not read a single assertion in Myers' post that a rational person could reasonably deduce from the current economic and political realities at home or abroad.

    The US, the eurozone and China have all pursued a cheap money policy for years and all except China have doubled down on it within the last month. The money supply in the major industrialized nations has ballooned. And historically, what have generally been the harbingers of impending economic disaster? Cheap money and burgeoning money supply. It's one of the reasons that the fringe right wants a return to the gold standard.

  • Fiddling at the Fire

    "After the election, it will probably be clear that at the final extremity, the US will contain any nuclear aspirations by Iran with deterrence, not war. "

    ???

    At the final extremity? Deterrence? What precisely do you think escalating sanctions over the last several years are all about? Just what deterrence is left unless the Chinese and Russians buy into the existing sanctions? How does the election - regardless of the winner - bring a realistic increase in deterrence?

  • Fiddling at the Fire

    The piper must be paid for a paroxysm of consumption fueled by illusory equity and naked greed. Central bankers are borrowing time but loans always charge interest and history suggests the interest rate will be nowhere near the ZLB.

    What the hell have we done with the economy that 'the greatest generation' bequeathed us?

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