Assault of Thoughts

A lot of major blogs have "link dump", end of the day wrap ups. At the end of a work day, the blogger generally posts a bunch of interesting links without much commentary. I assume this is the material that they've read and thought was important, but either didn't have much time to comment on, or anything much more to add. I find myself in this situation a lot too. I also try to keep what I post on here and on Facebook more general in nature, so I don't always get to comment on the more nuanced things that I think about (and often I don't feel fully up to the task of commenting on them anyway). So I'm going to start the "link dump" practice. Hopefully it will also keep activity at a steadier pace on here.

I've also noticed that these regular "link dumps" often have catchy titles... so mine will be "Assault of Thoughts". Literally speaking, it seems appropriate enough - I'm just going to be throwing a bunch of material at you. It comes from perhaps my favorite John Maynard Keynes quote: "words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking".

So for now:

- Yglesias links Mike Mandel's thoughts on the net national savings rate

- An Austrian School of Economics blogger and I spar over the liquidity trap, an idea that's been hogging a lot of my brain cells reccently

- Extended Taylor Rule bitching by John Taylor

- Krugman discussing the "depression within a depression" of 1937

- A less common argument for quantitative easing by the Fed

- Arnold Kling on Bernanke's speech to the AEA meeting in Atlanta: Bernanke defends low rates in the early 00's, and Kling agrees. Bernanke's position was not surprising to me, Kling's was. Apparently Krugman agrees too.