The New Republic

It didn’t garner much attention, but earlier this month, the chairman of a Fortune 500 company was kicked out of his job, and it wasn’t by management. Shareholders voted out Ray Irani, the chairman and former CEO of Occidental Petroleum, at the company’s annual meeting, with 76 percent of investors denying Irani the post. READ MORE >>

The foreclosure crisis hit hardest in cities like Newark, New Jersey. Lenders preyed on low-income areas and made loans to people who had little ability to pay them back. READ MORE >>

Two kinds of uncertainty affect our decisions—the unpredictability of the world, and the instability that indecision about law and policy creates. The former is perennial and ineradicable; the latter varies with the character of governance. While we always make decisions in conditions of uncertainty, there are times in which man-made surplus uncertainty further clouds the crystal ball. This matters because beyond a certain point, uncertainty can paralyze decision-making. As economists Scott Baker, Nicholas Bloom, Steven J. READ MORE >>

A major new study on Medicaid just became public. I know—nothing excites readers more than the phrase “major new study on Medicaid.” Bear with me. This study is already getting a lot of attention: Conservatives and libertarians are citing it as evidence that expanding Medicaid is wrong. That has me wondering: Did they read read the same study that I did? READ MORE >>

There is no greater obstacle to progressive change than the idea of austerity. It has dominated economic policy in Europe, resulting in continued slow growth (or outright contraction) and high unemployment. These conditions have produced demoralized electorates that lack faith in all politicians—a cynicism that has only deepened when leftist parties have attained power and failed to revive growth. In such an environment, progressive change is not possible, and the left is reduced to purely defensive actions. READ MORE >>

They're calling it the "Excel Error Heard Round the World": Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart's widely cited paper about the relationship between public debt and economic growth was revealed Monday to have grossly misstated economic growth for high-debt countries, all because of a  READ MORE >>

Central banking is not rocket science, but neither is it a trivial pursuit. READ MORE >>

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-backed guarantors of residential mortgages, hold a particularly reviled place in our political culture. They stand accused of taking a $187.5 billion government bailout (correct) and inciting the housing bubble and financial crisis (largely incorrect). READ MORE >>

On Thursday, the Standard and Poor’s stock market index hit a record high, surpassing the previous record set in October 2007. Last month, the unemployment rate fell to 7.7 percent, the lowest since December 2008. Only the most determined pessimist would find grounds for worry in the current economy. READ MORE >>

On March 13, before heading to Capitol Hill to talk deficit reduction with House Republicans, President Barack Obama, as is his custom before such showdowns, met with his economic team, including National Economic Council head Gene Sperling. The NEC, a Clinton-era innovation, is supposed to serve as an organizing body for the government’s other economic agencies, like Treasury and the budget office. READ MORE >>