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This month, CJR presents “Required Skimming,” a daily miniguide to our staffers’ beats and obsessions. If we overlooked any of your must-read destinations, please tell us in the comments.
The Conscience of a Liberal. Paul Krugman has been the essential thinker of the crisis, proven right time and again as his opponents’ predictions have failed miserably. In addition to winning Nobel Prizes, teaching at Princeton, writing textbooks and a twice-weekly New York Times column, he happens to be the best blogger writing, a wonk who can explain complicated concepts to laymen but who sometimes breaks out the big math.
Matthew O’Brien. The Atlantic‘s O’Brien is a sharp commentator who was an intern at The New Republic just a year and a half ago. Read him for common sense on monetary policy from a Keynesian perspective.
Economist’s View. The University of Oregon’s Mark Thoma does a great job of aggregating economic analysis and adding succinct commentary, much of it having directly to do with the Fed. If you want an understand-the-economics-beat reader, this is where to start.
Real Time Economics. No Fed list would be complete without Jon Hilsenrath, who upholds a longstanding Wall Street Journal tradition of owning the high-level Federal Reserve access beat. He contributes to RTE, a well-staffed, frequently updated blog on the economy.
Liberty Street Economics. William McChesney Martin, say, could never imagine the Federal Reserve would one day have its own blog, but there it is. If you want to geek out on Fed staff written blog posts. No clickbait SEO stuff here, with recent Fed staff-written posts like “Magnifying the Risk of Fire Sales in the Tri-Party Repo Market,” and “Do Treasury Term Premia Rise around Monetary Tightenings?.” Something like “Historical Echoes: The “Mississippi Bubble” – When One’s Back Could Be Rented Out as a Writing Desk” is about as grabby as it gets.
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