Thursday Roundup (2/9/2012)

Seemed like there wasn't much going on in the econoblogosphere this week (I was traveling for most of it, for second-round job interviews). People spent a lot of time discussing Charles Murray's new book, which seems to me a bit like feeding the trolls. The new unemployment numbers came out, and there was some argument over what they mean, but not as much as one might expect. Anyway, here's the links you may have missed:

1. Tyler Cowen discusses the benefits of, and good news about, Latin American immigration to the U.S.

2. Nick Rowe wonders why we don't smooth our consumption of leisure. Interesting question.

3. John Taylor thinks that our economic recovery has been terrible, and continues to be terrible. He chalks this up to the failure of "Keynesian" policies. I think it would be interesting to see him argue with Tyler Cowen, who says that we are having a good, strong recovery, and that this is evidence of the failure of "Keynesian" macro.

4. Scott Sumner reminds us that the Macro Wars are a three-legged race between Keynesians, neoclassicals, and monetarists (instead of a two-sided battle as many seem to think).

5. Brad DeLong, using some simple math, explains his thinking about labor market hysteresis.

6. Rob Johnson of INET interviews Sylvia Nasar about the history of economic thought.