EconoSpeak

I just now got around to reading some May 11 speech by Donald Trump who says he wants to reign in the high price of drugs. A laudable goal and Trump said some things that got applause. But ahem – he may no clue especially when he says things like this: We’re very much eliminating the middlemen. The middlemen became very, very rich. Right? (Applause.) Whoever those middlemen were — and a lot of people never even figured it out — they’re rich. They won’t be so rich anymore. Nancy L....

In the Sept. 14 Washington Post, Josh Rogin is all shocked and upset about a report that people in the US Treasury Department, apparently supported by, if not outright led by, Secretary Steve Mnuchin, have been stonewalling or slow-moving a memo that was ordered up by President Trump in late July in order to implement the fully renewed financial sanctions against Iran, specifically to disallow Iranian banks from using the international SWIFT settlement system, which was imposed on them in...

I returned a few days ago from a conference in Italy where I spoke with some former economic  advisers of the Five Star Movement )M5S), which is now in a coalition government with the hard right wing Lega, formerly the separatist Northern League, which has now gone national, appealing to southern Italy with a strong anti-immigrant push.  While the not very exciting M5S leaders push for a minimum income guarantee,  Lega's Matteo Salvini as Interior  Minister has been capturing all the public...

Kevin DOW 36000 Hassett was sent out to the White House press to lie about real wage growth. Or maybe he just proved he seriously needs remedial math for another reason besides one that Brad DeLong notes: Glassman and Hassett get the math of the Gordon equation for valuing the stock market simply wrong. It's not the earnings yield that shows up in the numerator, it's the dividend yield. The book should have been called Dow 22000. I would put this in a slightly different way. We use the...

The July-August issue of New Left Review published an essay by Robert Pollin titled "De-growth vs. Green New Deal" in which he outlines his objections to what Peter Dorman affectionately refers to as "a suicide cult masquerading as a political position." I have written a response to Pollin's article, that I have submitted to NLR, a draft of which, "Pollin's Green New Deal: Blueprint for Ecological Salvation?" may be downloaded as a pdf file from dropbox.In my response I am particularly...

The Washington Post today (on p. A11) has a revealing story about how President Trump has essentially shafted an important world leader who may have tried harder than any other to please and appease Trump from the moment he became president, with the story ironically reporting that supposedly Trump views the friendly feeling as mutual and has said much more respectful things about this leader than almost any other, with perhaps Vladimir Putin being the prime exception.  This world leader is...

He may well have.  Facing the  deadline for submitting his deal with Mexico to Congress on Friday, he did so.  However, he did so without Canada signed on, the apparently intense negotiations in Washington between Canadian Foreign Minister, Chrystia Freeland and US Trade Representative, Robert Lighthizer having failed to come to an agreement.  With both the Mexican leaders and major Republican senators saying they will not approve without Canada on board, this makes for a very dicey...

Juan Cole reports that Reuters reports that China is establishing a commodities futures market in Shanghai that will operate in yuan/rmb.  According to the report the commodity that is most expected to be traded is crude petroleum.  This will put this exchange in competition with the West Texas intermediate crude market, the London-based Brent crude market, and the Dubai market, all of which operate in US dollars.Supposedly a main motive for establishing this market is to provide an outlet...

I really am not sure where to begin with this latest farce, Trump's announcement yesterday of a supposed US-Mexico Free Trade Agreement.  Of course there was the farce of him trying to make the announcement with a live phone call between him and outgoing Mexican President Pena-Nieto (to be replaced on Dec. 1 by leftist populist Obrador), which took awhile to get going.  There is the problem that some details appear to be unresolved, but most importantly that Pena-Nieto insisted four times...