EconoSpeak

What is it with cows?  I mean their flatulence does add to global warming, but they seem so benign, chewing their cud while producing milk and meat.  Why is it that national leaders get into fits of backstabbing over them, or especially over all that milk they produce?Well, of course, that is it; they produce a lot of it, and a variety of products come from the milk, which sometimes markets do  not want as much of as some of the other products. This is probably the main reason that in...

Not really a surprise, after all, it is Monday, and RJS has been at this for quite a long time at his post at WaPo.  But the recent release of the Trustees' Report has not only gotten the Associated Press all bent out and shrieking "insolvency," but I think with the push coming from the recent massive tax cuts that are swelling the budget deficit, the usual old gang of "cut the entitlements!" VSPs are out in force and raging pretty hard.  So Samuelson is denouncing "The Cowardice of the...

"The wage-fund doctrine was the quintessential product of what Marx termed vulgar political economy; a dogma concealing real economic relations, on the one hand, and justifying them, on the other. It was a transparent effort to disarm the working-class movement, and an attempt (largely successful) to rally public opinion behind bourgeois resistance to the demands of working people for a better life. It was the principal ideological weapon in the arsenal of capital in its disputes...

Dean Baker at Beat-the-Press has pointed out (sorry, not able to link to it) that Associated Press put out a tweet that presents an essentially hysterical story about future prospects for Social Security following the recent release of the Trustees.  This report says that as of 2026 Medicare and as of 2034 Social Security will face a "shortfall."  However, the AP tweeted that what they face is "insolvency."  Needless to  say, "insolvency" is much more serious than "shortfall" and simply...

On May 15 I posted here on "Overhyping the Happiness Curve," a critique of the recent book by Jonathan Rauch, The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50. After it was linked to on Marginal Revolution, author Jonathan Rauch wrote a Response to my post on May 25, which was also linked to on MR. I did not immediately reply as I was in Santa Cruz and did not have my copy of the book. I shall now comment on his reply.  He makes three main points.The first is that he says I made a false...

I spent Memorial Day weekend with extended family members in Santa Cruz, near where many of them live, but with none of them right there  It was most pleasant, but explaining the nature of the place and the University of California branch there led me to think more deeply about its real meaning and foundation.  I am not aware of anybody else saying this before, but it struck me that Santa Cruz is a place where some decades ago Big Sur met Silicon Valley.The place remains a very pleasant...

I don't believe in intellectual property... I don't believe in compound interest... Nobody believes in the lump-of-labor fallacy. Mr. Nadella is engaging in a game of projection and disavowal that is as old as capitalism. He is affirming the reality of an event that only happens in the imagination -- the production of something out of nothing. To perform this usurious hat trick, one must assume something one knows is not true -- that money is fertile. The attribution of a bogus "fallacy"...

The New York Times has a mostly insightful article on the effect of almost a decade of austerity on economic and social conditions in England.  It focuses on Liverpool and provides example after example of savage cuts to the programs and institutions people have depended on all their lives: the National Health Service, income support, libraries, parks and recreation, police and fire departments.  It’s an important story, well told.Except that it flubs the single most important piece, why...

What do I have to show for my sabbatical?  Among other things, this report on the economic and social impact of AIDS I prepared for the International Labor Organization.  It’s just been posted on their website, so it’s yours for the perusing.

How do we get the word out that our underlying conception of how regulations should be designed and enforced needs to change?The New York Times has an ominous article about the overuse of antibiotics by the livestock industry and its risks for animal health and ours.  Flooding our digestive system with these drugs damages the gut microbiome we depend on for nutrition and waste processing, and it promotes the evolution of resistant strains of bacteria.  The upshot, according to this...