Grasping Reality on TypePad, by Brad DeLong

Good point: "In spring there was talk of the return of the “bond vigilantes” of the 1980s and 1990s — meaning that investors would demand ever-higher yields on Treasuries to discipline the government. Yet yields on most longer-term Treasury securities are lower today than they were at the end of May, even as the economy has shown signs of recovery. The 10-year T-note yield is at 3.45% today, down from 3.74% on May 27." For now, at least, interest rate movements seem to reflect views about the economic situation and the prospects for eventual Fed tightening. Rates rose as the end-of-the-world scenario receded, then stabilized. There’s no hint in the data of fears about (a) crowding out (b) inflation (c) default. It’s good to be an advanced country.

My father spent his 21st birthday in a prisoner of war camp.  Deaf in one ear, and completely flat-footed, he could have easily been a “4-F” and escaped service for medical reasons.  He was a peaceful man but he, like so many of his generation, felt the need to serve his country, and to fight againgst the fascism that was threatening to engulf the democratic nations of Western Europe, and had even attacked the United States.  When he was 20 years old, he’d been taken prisoner by the Germans at the Battle of the Bulge, was marched for miles, imprisoned, and starved.  Like many men of his generation, veterans of World War II, he didn’t talk about it much.  He held his memories close to his chest.  If he talked to anyone about them, I didn’t know.  It was only many years after his service and just before his death that he shared some of those memories with me. Starvation does strange things to people.  He told me that after a while in the camp, he had the same recurring dream, every nig

There were a lot of problems with the hatchet job on high-speed rail by Robert Samuelson that The Washington Post decided to run yesterday. But all you really need to know about the quality of the column is that it actually advanced the following argument: “Distances also matter. America is big; trips are longer. Beyond 400 to 500 miles, fast trains can’t compete with planes.”