links for 2008-08-18

• Export Boom Helps Farms, Not Factories - NYTimes.com
• The Rambo Coalition (8/24/04) - The Unofficial Paul Krugman Web Page
• Bernanke Tries to Define What Institutions Fed Could Let Fail - Bloomberg
• That Newspapers Are the Central Banks of Social Currency - Economic Principals
• Obama Vows to Shake Off Republican Attacks - Washington Wire
• Despite Assurances, McCain Wasn't in a "Cone of Silence" - NYTimes.com
• Grade Inflation - Crooked Timber

Comments

[reason]

Another good article
(Mark Thoma?)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/17/psychology

[kharris]

The Times piece on the US export boom is remarkably bad. It points out both that overall commodity exports are up 40% and that corn exports, which have enjoyed the biggest increase of any commodity, are up just 20% by volume. How, does the Times explain this discrepency? The Times doesn't. If it did, it would be clear that the great commodity export boom is largely a matter of higher prices, rather than higher production. Corn export volumes are up, but what about wheat and beans? Corn has been planted at the expense of acreage for other crops, after all.

Hollowing up is the explanation that the Times likes for the failure of factory exports to keep pace with farm exports, but that is not consistent with the below-average level of factory utilization. We don't need more factories to export more factory goods. We have the capacity to export more with current capacity. Factory goods are made elsewhere because elsewhere is more attractive, not because the US lacks capacity.