The Angry Bear

by Barkley Rosser {originally published at Econospeak) Which Is More Important, China Or Syria? For the world as a whole and the US in particular, when it is put like that it is pretty obvious: China.  It has the world’s largest population, largest economy in PPP terms, a rising military, expanding interests around the world, including making territorial demands on several neighbors, not to mention being a nuclear superpower as well as cyberpower, and more. ...

by New Deal democrat Prime working age employment up, participation up (finally) – now how about wages? The March jobs report finishes the first quarter, which make it easier to update some labor participation trends, which, along with wages, has really lagged in this nearly 8 year old expansion. In order to eliminate the issue of the huge Baby Boom generation retiring, and to a lesser extent college and graduate students, we have some good data on the prime...

The Sandwichman commented the other day on The Economist article, “Britain’s Green Party proposes a three-day weekend.” Regrettably, though, I didn’t pay much attention to their “rebuttal” to the alleged assumption of a fixed amount of work: In fact, if people worked fewer hours, demand would drop, and so fewer working hours would be on offer. I have seen stupid explanations before of why there is not a fixed amount of work. Layard, Nickell and Jackman...

by Sandwichman Thank God it’s Boilerplate!: It’s Thursday and The Economist is lumping its labour The Economist and Jonathan Portes are at it again. “Lump of labor! Lump of labor!” The occasion? A proposal for a four-day workweek announced by the U.K. Green Party at their convention this week in Liverpool.   The Economist pretended to find “two problems” with the Greens’ proposal: The Greens’ proposals encounter two problems. First, the theory. They argue...

Via Naked Capitalism is a post by Pavlina R. Tcherneva of Bard College at New Economic Perspectives. Worth reading the whole post… by Pavlina R. Tcherneva   (originally published at New Economic Perspectives) Inequality Update: Who Gains When Income Grows? Growth in the US increasingly brings income inequality.  A striking deterioration in this trend has occurred since the 80s, when economic recoveries delivered the vast majority of income growth to the...

by New Deal democrat March jobs report: participation up, unemployment down, wage growth miserly HEADLINES: +98,000 jobs added U3 unemployment rate down 0.2% from 4.7% to 4.5% U6 underemployment rate down 0.3% from 9.2% to 8.9% Here are the headlines on wages and the chronic heightened underemployment: Wages and participation rates Not in Labor Force, but Want a Job Now:  up +284,000 from 5.597 million to 5.781 million Part time for economic reasons: down...

Excerpts from Randolph Bourne’s The State: War is the health of the State. It automatically sets in motion throughout society those irresistible forces for uniformity, for passionate cooperation with the Government in coercing into obedience the minority groups and individuals which lack the larger herd sense. The machinery of government sets and enforces the drastic penalties. The minorities are either intimidated into silence, or brought slowly around by...

NYT Dealbook points to a how the 2 trillion dollar overseas money can come “home” and how money is spent.  2005 comes to mind the last time repatriation of “overseas money” comes to mind. Linda Beale Repatriation holiday lobbying – Money Speaks and More on repatriation. Taxprof blog here and Senate report here. The Overseas Cash Grab (from Dealbook) Corporate chiefs in the United States have bemoaned for years the taxes that they would face if they brought...