Armchair Economics

Today, trads, I'm shifting gears. It's a risky think to do because once I start talking about anything more complicated than button down shirts I can get out of my depth very quickly. But I'll take a chance and write a bit about one of my other screen time activities - reading about current macro-economic issues.

I won't launch into a one sided diatribe about what's wrong, who did it, or how it can be fixed. I'm not qualified to do that and I don't have enough readers to intentionally drive half of them off. If you're interested in that sort of thing, you only have to go over to The Interchange. My interest is just to point out that 1) for those who haven't yet noticed, these are very turbulent and interesting times in the world of finance and economics, 2) there are many smart people writing about these issues daily on the internet and 3) in my opinion, the educated need to understand some of these issues better than they do.

One of the things that makes it interesting is that although there are many alarming things going on, the effects on the broader economy have been relatively mild. The fact that the dollar, housing, mortgages, oil prices, food prices, financial institutions, auto sales, and airlines are all going bonkers at once yet so many of our lives continue on fairly normally (except for that scrubbed trip to Paris) is a testament to the overall robustness of the old American way. Even so, there is enough going on to justify paying attention.

Given the title of this post, I'm going to take the risk of suggesting some places to begin for anyone interested in following developments. The suggested writers are all left of center types. None in my opinion are off the charts commie lefties but we all draw that line where we do. It is, however, true that if you still believe that tax cuts pay for themselves or you think that Alan Greenspan is a god or your sister is married to Lawrence Kudlow you probably won't find much to like here. I'd gladly offer a list of writers of right wing economic thinking but I'm clueless.

I started off by reading Paul Krugman. He is easy enough to find, he writes most Mondays and Fridays for the NY Times. Easily the most well known of the economists I'm mentioning today and thus the most despised. There is even a fellow named Donald Luskin who had devoted his career to Krugman hatred. In addition to his column, he also keeps a blog going.

After reading Krugman a while I stumbled across Brad Delong. Delong is a Berkley economist who was somehow involved in the Clinton administration. Like Krugman, he doesn't mind wandering off into other political issues so you may want to stay away if you think your blood may boil.

Finally there are 3 sites that focus on economic issues for the most part but tend to get a little technical. I won't pretend to understand much of what they say. If you like graphs and charts and formulas then you will love these guys. Angry Bear is a group blog by people who wish to remain anonymous. Calculated Risk, also anonymous, and Economist's View by Mark Thoma round out the suggested readings. It's a lot to keep track of but if you have time on your hands you could do worse with it.

Finally, I'll say again that there are a lot of interesting things currently going on in the world of economics. If you feel like your brain needs a stretch or you are just curious or bored, take a look.