EconoSpeak

...from 200 years ago:"The increase of trade and commerce opened a boundless extent to luxury:—the splendour of luxurious enjoyment in a few excited a worthless, and debasing, and selfish emulation in all:—The attainment of wealth became the ultimate purpose of life:—the selfishness of nature was pampered up by trickery and art:—pride and ambition were made subservient to this vicious purpose:—their appetite was corrupted in their infancy, that it might leave its natural and wholesome...

Why then is it that no existing society, nor society that ever had existence, has arrived at this point of time, considering that in all times, and in all societies, excepting only the very barbarous, a few years would naturally have led to it?How is it too, it might be added, that notwithstanding the unbounded extent of our capital, the progressive improvement and wonderful perfection of our machinery, our canals, roads, and of all other things that can either facilitate labour, or increase...

In 1995 I launched the TimeWork Web, which was a "research site" for investigating the history, theory, desirability, practicality, and feasibility of reducing the hours of work. The fruits of that endeavor included my history and critique of the "lump of labor" fallacy claim, rediscovery of Sydney Chapman's once canonical "Hours of Labour" analysis, and the rediscovery and transcription of Charles Wentworth Dilke's The Source and Remedy of the National Difficulties deduced from principles...

 Where I am the Third Day of Christmas is just finishing with the news that Grinch Trump has ended his own brief War on Christmas and is signing the Covid-19 relief bill, thereby reinstating unemployment benefits for 14 million people although they'll miss a week of payments, as well as preventing millions more from being evicted from their rental housing units, along with the Omnibus spending bill so the government will not shut down after tomorrow.  There has been less noise this year...

How it started (Charles Wentworth Dilke, 1821):THE PROGRESS OF THIS INCREASING CAPITAL WOULD, in established societies, BE MARKED BY THE DECREASING INTEREST OF MONEY, or, which is the same thing, the decreasing quantity of the labour of others that would be given for its use; but so long as capital could command interest at all, it would seem to follow, that the society cannot have arrived at that maximum of wealth, or of productive power, when its produce must be allowed to perish.When,...

 This morning’s New York Times offers a panel discussion on the question of who should get vaccinated against Covid first.  Broadly speaking, they take a utilitarian position: it’s interesting that none disagreed with the positions taken by panelist Peter Singer, the world’s most prominent utilitarian philosopher.  And I wouldn’t either, except for one thing.The vaccines approved by the FDA, along with those approved by other countries like China and Russia, have gone through the fastest...

 So the Congress struggled for months after the House passed a $3.3 trillion followup Covid relief bill, which Senate Majority Leader McConnell blocked and kept blocking.  House Speaker Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin kept negotiating and coming up with this or that proposal, only to mostly have McConnell shoot it down, or sometimes Pres. Trump himself doing so.  Finally after the election, and with the threat of losing control of the Senate, McConnell suddenly decided a deal needed to...

 Or maybe not.So recently there has been a lot of buzz that we may be seeing a variety of speculative bubbles in the US and indeed world economy.  Many asset markets have risen in the last few months, with several of them either reaching new highs or getting close to doing so, with some of them rising very sharply quite recently, with all of this making many eyebrows rise to noticeable degrees and mumble about possible crashes, which could well happen in any of these markets. But probably...

 I do not know, but it is on the surface at least surprising.AMLO is the nickname of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the President of Mexico since Dec. 1, 2018.  Only yesterday, along with Mitch McConnell, President Putin of Russia and President Bolsonaro of Brazil, AMLO congratulated Joe Biden on his victory over Donald Trump in the US presidential eleciton, leaving only North Korea's Kim Jong Un still not recognizing Biden's victory among world leaders.  Putin and Bolsonaro and Kim have all...

The best can be said about a possible fiscal stimulus in the face of a renewed Covid-19 surge that is dragging the economy down as many areas shut down in various degrees is that at least a few hours ago the US Senate approved a one week continuing budget resolution to keep the fed govt functioning. In past years govt shutdown was a big deal, but with the current president threatening to seize power in a coup even in the face of the SCOTUS unanimously repudiating his final "Kraken" lawsuit,...