Tag: macroeconomics

Free Money: How the Free Money of Medicaid Expansion is Better than the Free Money of a 401k Match

Friday, November 22, 2013 at 1pm
By John Friedman

Never turn down free money, you hear people sometimes say, right? And if free money were a more common thing, why, then you’d hear it said a whole lot more, but it ain’t (because, you know, TANSTAAFL and if-it-looks-too-good-to-be-true and such) so you don’t. But free money does in fact […]

Friedman’s Law of the First Thing: Macroeconomics and The Sequester

Monday, February 18, 2013 at 12pm
By John Friedman

Imagine that you live in a world with three people: a farmer, a tool builder, and a tailor. Got it? So the farmer grows the food all of ’em eat, the tool builder builds the tools all of ’em use, and the tailor makes the clothes all of ’em put […]

Getting Smart About the Economy at Large: a Thank You to Paul Krugman

Monday, November 19, 2012 at 12pm
By John Friedman

Many of us took Macro 101 somewhere along the way. That introductory macro course — macro being short for macroeconomics — looked at the very largest of economic phenomenon, such as money, interest rates, international competition, etc. Many of us also took Micro 101 — micro being short for microeconomics — which […]

A Debt Crisis or a Jobs Crisis?

Wednesday, June 9, 2010 at 9am
By John Friedman

Debate is heating up, pretty much to a boil, about whether our goose is just about cooked because we have too much debt, or whether our goose is just about cooked because we have too much unemployment. Well, at least everyone agrees that the goose is in the oven . […]