New Economic Perspectives

By William K. BlackBloomington, MN     November 22, 2016 I’ve come back recently from Kilkenny, Ireland where I participated in the seventh annual Kilkenomics – a festival of economics and comedy.  The festival is noted for people from a broad range of economic perspectives presenting their economic views in plain, blunt English.  Kilkenomics VII began two days after the U.S. election, so we added some sessions on President-elect Trump’s fiscal policy views.  Trump had no obvious supporters...

By William K. BlackNovember 21, 2016     Bloomington, MN Bloomberg has written an article about the origins of Paul Romer’s increasingly famous critique of modern macroeconomics. His intention actually had been to write a paper that would celebrate advances in the understanding of what drives economic growth. But when he sat down to write it in the months before taking over as the World Bank’s chief economist, Romer quickly found his heart wasn’t in it. The world economy wasn’t growing much...

Michael Hoexter, Ph.D. The US press has generally played a dismal role in warning people of the imminent dangers of climate breakdown and upcoming thresholds beyond which humanity may not survive as an organized species or a species at all.   The media should be every day reporting on both the record breaking temperatures of 2016 as well as alarming changes in the surface of the earth that have resulted and will likely result from the enormous heat. Questions for the recent 2016 US...

By J.D. ALT On November 8, I happened to be complacently immersed in one of the important books now available to the human species—The Hidden Life of Trees, by Peter Wohlleben.  On the morning of November 9, I realized that what I was reading not only offered a perfectly analogous explanation of what “happened” in the U.S. Presidential election, but also laid out instructive insights about what’s to come next. To provide a highly simplified overview (please bear with me for a moment),...

Pavlina R. Tcherneva Economic consequences A lot has been said already. For me, this was the culmination of a decades-long process where the Democrats sold out their progressive agenda and happily embraced the Republican’s neoliberal economic policies. For some of the best analysis, see here, here, here and here. My own view is that the Democrats have not had an economic policy of their own for nearly half a century, just an ‘inferior’ version of what Republicans usually champion—tax cuts...

By William K. BlackNovember 8, 2016     Kansas City, MO I am writing this article late on election night in my office at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, about a mile from the home in which Tom Frank grew up just over the state line in Kansas.  Beginning with his famous book, What’s the Matter with Kansas, first published in 2004, Tom Frank has been warning the Democratic Party of the increasing cost it was paying by abandoning and even attacking the working class, particularly the...

Michael Hoexter, Ph.D. The Presidential election campaign of 2016 has been nauseating in the ugliness of its tone and content as well as how discussion of important issues about government policy has been sidelined in the public debates and the public sphere more generally.  The media seem to be encouraging the personalized ugliness in ways that are perhaps predictable as they have for years now reported politics as a horserace and soap opera and not as the conflict of ideas.  If we were to...

By William K. BlackNovember 2, 2016     Kansas City, MO The uber-right wing economist Tyler Cowen, has written a column entitled “TPP Is Exciting. Let’s Make the Case for It.”  Cowen’s column is remarkable for his inability to even get himself excited about TPP, much less his readers.  He begins with what should be an important warning – there will be a major effort by President Obama and the largest corporations to pass the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) during the lame duck session after...

On Monday, 31 October 2016, Dr. L. Randall Wray was on the radio program and podcast, Hopping Mad with Will McLeod & Arliss Bunny. The focus of the interview was Wray’s newest book, Why Minsky Matters:  An Introduction to the Work of a Maverick Economist. The interview was more than an hour long so Wray was able to give lengthy answers without being pressured for time. Dr. Wray’s book, Why Minsky Matters can be found on the Princeton University Press website and on Amazon where it is is...

By William K. BlackOctober 30, 2016      Bloomington, MN When last I wrote of Roger Lowenstein he was complaining that the Wall Street felons were being criticized – not jailed – criticized.  Lowenstein is Wall Street’s self-appointed apologist-in-chief.  Naturally, he despises Senator Warren, the most effective elected official in exposing Wall Street’s elite frauds.  The New York Times granted him an op ed in which he sought to mansplain financial regulation to Senator Warren. Lowenstein...