Thinking about fiscal policy dominates my time lately. Mostly my concern is with parsing the data in such a way to make sense of the various arguments out there about the proper course for fiscal policy. Recall that I doubt that anyone is willing to reduce spending by enough to balance the budget. So if we are to see balanced budgets at some point, the timing of that is a topic for another post, it seems likely to me that tax increases will be necessary. Anyway, those policy issues will be covered another day.

Continue reading Thinking about Fiscal Matters

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At least that is the case for the healthcare obligations of most states and local areas, though Robert Pozen points out that this is likely to change soon (available here). This is something I discussed when Detroit went through bankruptcy proceedings. Pension and healthcare obligations of the city made a contribution to the bankruptcy, but only because the broader electorate allow it. If we get accurate accounting and compel elected officials to use realistic discount rates there would be a better sense of the amount of these obligations. The proposed accounting changes are a step in the right direction, requiring more transparency and better assumptions.

Continue reading There’s No Accounting For Healthcare

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This is a little more macro/money than much of the stuff I post here but it seems to be something people miss sometimes. The Federal Reserve drastically lowered rates in response to the unfolding financial crisis in 2008 and later. Those rates remain low today, essentially set between 0.0 and 0.25%. Despite this range the rate is effectively staying at or below 0.1%, but that is not what I am addressing today.

Continue reading The “Real” Fed Funds Rate

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I have not looked at oil production time series for North Dakota in a while so I thought it time to take a look. Oil production, in fact most commodity production, and certainly extractive production, has an interesting cost structure. There are significant fixed cost elements to cover in order to generate profit. Notice in the graph below that while price starts rising around 2000, it was not until around 2005 that production started to rise. As the price continues to rise we see production continue to increase too.

Continue reading North Dakota Oil Prices & Production

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