Monday economic roundup
Time is short for me today, so I'll just quickly draw your attention to a few things.
- Even more hard numbers are backing up the word we got last week that Americans are cutting gasoline consumption.
- Robert Shiller, he of the Case-Shiller housing index and one of the handful of mainstream figures who saw the housing bubble for what it was, nonetheless absolves Alan Greenspan of blame, saying basically he was a victim of bad advice and the herd mentality. But as Dean Baker points out, how hard could it have been to see the steady increase in house prices suddenly depart from historic norms around 1997 and think it was anything other than an aberration? Oh, that's right, the tech boom was supposed to be a "new era," too.
- Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Telegraph has pronounced the Fed rate cuts a failure and strongly suggests that only hyperinflationary measures can now avert a collapse like Japan circa 1989. Drudge linked to this sucker high up, so it's getting a lot of clicks today. Is Evans-Pritchard on the money, or is there one more rate-raising cycle to go before everything hits the fan? Comments welcome below…
Comments: