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EconoSpeak

The Econospeak blog, which succeeded MaxSpeak (co-founded by Barkley Rosser, a Professor of Economics at James Madison University and Max Sawicky, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute) is a multi-author blog . Self-described as “annals of the economically incorrect”, this frequently updated blog analyzes daily news from an economic perspective, but requires a strong economics background.

Disposable time, disposable population, disposable products

DISPOSABLE TIME, DISPOSABLE TIME, DISPOSABLE TIME, DISPOSABLE TIME, DISPOSABLE TIME, DISPOSABLE TIME, DISPOSABLE TIME... Did I mention "disposable time"? Marx repeated disposable time seven time in paragraph (three paragraphs in the complete works) I've taken the above excerpt from. In English. In capital letters. That, and the fact that his theory of crisis was sandwiched between two quotations from The Source and Remedy of the National Difficulty suggest to me that Marx's theory of crisis...

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Disposable time, disposable population, disposable products

DISPOSABLE TIME, DISPOSABLE TIME, DISPOSABLE TIME, DISPOSABLE TIME, DISPOSABLE TIME, DISPOSABLE TIME, DISPOSABLE TIME... Did I mention "disposable time"? Marx repeated disposable time seven time in paragraph (three paragraphs in the complete works) I've taken the above excerpt from. In English. In capital letters. That, and the fact that his theory of crisis was sandwiched between two quotations from The Source and Remedy of the National Difficulty suggest to me that Marx's theory of crisis...

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RIP Tracy Mott

 Tracy Mott has died at 75, a well-known Post Keynesian economist and nice guy.  I was Facebook friends with him, and from there he seemed fine, actively posting and commenting.  Indeed, in the obit I saw for him it did not say what he died of.  But I guess one can post there even when one is not well.  He died in Denver where he had long lived and been in the economics department at the University of Denver, which he served as Chair of for quite a long time, building it up as a center of...

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RIP Tracy Mott

 Tracy Mott has died at 75, a well-known Post Keynesian economist and nice guy.  I was Facebook friends with him, and from there he seemed fine, actively posting and commenting.  Indeed, in the obit I saw for him it did not say what he died of.  But I guess one can post there even when one is not well.  He died in Denver where he had long lived and been in the economics department at the University of Denver, which he served as Chair of for quite a long time, building it up as a center of...

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Money Illusion in the Twenty-First Century

The starting point for any consideration of inflation is that wages (and interest, profits and rents) are prices.  Every transaction has two sides, and one person’s price is another’s income.  In the aggregate, leaving aside international complications, inflation can’t have either a negative or positive effect on aggregate real income.  After this you can explore issues of distribution, inflation’s effects on planning, and so on.Money illusion is the name given to the failure to recognize...

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Money Illusion in the Twenty-First Century

The starting point for any consideration of inflation is that wages (and interest, profits and rents) are prices.  Every transaction has two sides, and one person’s price is another’s income.  In the aggregate, leaving aside international complications, inflation can’t have either a negative or positive effect on aggregate real income.  After this you can explore issues of distribution, inflation’s effects on planning, and so on.Money illusion is the name given to the failure to recognize...

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Anti-Racism and Democracy in Our Schools

 It’s generally conceded that Terry McAuliffe’s statement “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach” was a big blunder that contributed to his defeat last week.  The context was a debate with his Republican opponent, Glenn Youngkin, who had used his party’s playbook on Critical Race Theory and the “leftist” takeover of education.  Not surprisingly, Youngkin hammered McAuliffe with this quote in TV and web ads.So what should McAuliffe have said instead?  Imagine...

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Anti-Racism and Democracy in Our Schools

 It’s generally conceded that Terry McAuliffe’s statement “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach” was a big blunder that contributed to his defeat last week.  The context was a debate with his Republican opponent, Glenn Youngkin, who had used his party’s playbook on Critical Race Theory and the “leftist” takeover of education.  Not surprisingly, Youngkin hammered McAuliffe with this quote in TV and web ads.So what should McAuliffe have said instead?  Imagine...

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Infrastructure week: organs of the human brain, created by the human hand

Who owns general social knowledge? Who owns the general intellect? Alf Hornborg pointed out that without the fuel to run it, a tractor is simply a piece of sculpture. It is not even a sculpture, though, if there is no one to design it and build it and operate it, let alone to design and manufacture the tools needed to build the tractor and so on.Marx's list of things nature does not build, "machines... locomotives, railways, electric telegraphs, self-acting mules etc." is echoed in the next...

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Infrastructure week: organs of the human brain, created by the human hand

Who owns general social knowledge? Who owns the general intellect? Alf Hornborg pointed out that without the fuel to run it, a tractor is simply a piece of sculpture. It is not even a sculpture, though, if there is no one to design it and build it and operate it, let alone to design and manufacture the tools needed to build the tractor and so on.Marx's list of things nature does not build, "machines... locomotives, railways, electric telegraphs, self-acting mules etc." is echoed in the next...

Read More »