Tufte’s Short Post # 21: We’re in a liquidity trap

We’re in a liquidity trap. This is more or less what the textbooks have been saying for decades that a liquidity trap would look like. But, the way out of that is expansionary fiscal policy … D.C. is a lot better at labeling their policies as expansionary than they are at actually making them so (passim).

There’s an arthouse film called Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould. You’re getting Twenty-Six Short Posts from Dr. Tufte. :) These are on why it’s difficult to understand the current macroeconomic situation. Joe Baker is not a macroeconomist, but we all do a little bit of everything at SUU, so he has to teach principles of macroeconomics sometimes. The other day he asked for pointers about summing up for his students why we can’t quite figure out what’s wrong with the economy. I came up with 26 reasons, most of which have been discussed in class, and all of which are now required.