Submitted by CARPE DIEM
The chart above shows annual M2 growth rates (monthly data here) based on the average M2 level in each year, except for 2008, which shows the growth rate of M2 from July 2007 to July 2008.

Notice that in the inflationary 1970s period, there were 5 years of M2 growth above 12% […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
1. In Louisiana it is illegal to sell and arrange flowers without permission from the government. Aspiring florists must pass a subjective licensing exam that is graded by existing florists, who have a direct incentive to keep new competitors from entering the market. Thus the failure rate is higher than that of […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
CD Post #1 was made on September 20, 2006 (702 days ago), and this is CD Post #3,000. That works out to 4.3 CD posts per day, on average. Figure about one hour per post on average to find something interesting, create and write a post, often with graphs, charts, or tables, […]

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Submitted by unsettling economics
The idea that the oil companies need to get permission to drill offshore is ridiculous. The majors are more intent in using their funds to buy back their stocks to raise the share price to help boost their bonuses. Here are my notes from an interesting study from the James A. Baker […]

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Submitted by Econbrowser
I normally leave it to folks like Dean Baker to beat up on the press. But I can’t resist shining a bright light on today’s story about oil speculators in the Washington Post, which has also been discussed by Mark Thoma and Tyler Cowen.
David Cho opens his story in the Washington Post with […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM

The chart above shows a comparison of the percentage growth in M1, M2, Real GDP and CPI during two ten-year periods: July 1972 to July 1982, and the most recent 10-year period from July 1998 to July 2008 for M1, M2 and CPI; and 1972:QII to 1982:QII and 1998:QI to 2008:QII for […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM

In a comment Thomas Blair said: “The way CPI is calculated has changed, which makes comparisons between eras or even years irrelevant.”

An anonymous commenter writes “Your reasoning is so specious. Firstly you have to recognize that inflation (CPI) is measured differently from the 70s so you’re comparing apples to oranges.”

The BLS provides […]

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