Real-World Economics Review

from Peter Radford This is a long speculation, for which I apologize, provoked by the following: “In an information civilization, societies are defined by questions of knowledge — how it is distributed, the authority that governs its distribution and the power that protects that authority. Who knows? Who decides who knows? Who decides who decides who knows? Surveillance capitalists now hold the answers to each question, though we never elected them to govern. This is the essence of the...

from Dean Baker It’s fair to say that the U.S. performance in dealing with the pandemic has been disastrous. With the effort led by Donald Trump, this is not surprising. His main, if not only, concern was keeping up appearances. Preventing the spread of the pandemic, and needless death, was obviously not part of his agenda. Unfortunately, many other wealthy countries, like France, Belgium, and Sweden, have not done much better. They don’t have the excuse of having a saboteur in charge who...

from Asad Zaman  “my views are based on insights acquired from MMT, but  .  . . . . . . . . . . . ”          In this post, I will provide a critique of Raguram Rajan’s article “How Much Debt is Too Much?”. (Alternative link to Rajan’s article) The article opens with a description of the governments “opening their coffers, to support small households and firms” in the COVID era. Required spending has been on the order of 15-20% of the GDP, and the article examines the extent to which...

Rick and Dean discuss the recent market uncertainty and how the GameStop revolution is likely to play out.

from Lars Syll And still, amidst all this tumult, many economists are disinclined to rethink the foundations of their field. It reminds me of the closing joke in Woody Allen’s film Annie Hall. A guy has a crazy brother who thinks he is a chicken.  The doctor asks, ‘Why don’t you turn him in?’ The guy replies, ‘I would, but I need the eggs.’ ” Why is the free-market discourse so perdurable despite so many social, ecological, and political realities that call its logic and categories of...

Intellectual property like pharmaceutical patents is part of the story of why so many people face a long wait for COVID-19 vaccines says Dean Baker discussing the high cost of policy choices that make the rich richer at public expense.

Covid 19 vaccinations are going well. Quite a number of vaccines have been approved. And these are being used. At the time of writing close to 100 million ‘jabs’ have already been provided, not just of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine but also of the Sputnic, AstraZeneca and Sinovac vaccines. And the pace is quickening, for instance in countries like Brazil and Morocco (which uses AstraZeneca and Sinopharm vaccines in its 3.000 vaccination centres). Look here for the scientific...

from Lars Syll Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enterprise becomes the bubble on a whirlpool of speculation. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done.The measure of success attained by Wall Street, regarded as an institution of which the proper social purpose is to direct new investment into the most profitable channels in terms of...

from Dean Baker The Wall Street crew is furious over the masses at Robinhood and Reddit ruining their games with their mass buying of GameStop, which wiped out the short position of a big hedge fund. The Robinhood/Reddit masses are touting this as a victory over Wall Street. The Wall Street insiders are decrying this effort to turn the market into a casino. It’s worth sorting this one out a bit and answering the question everyone is asking (or should be), would a financial transactions...

from Peter Radford The sudden attention being given to the gyrations of Game Stop stock prices has caused all sorts of hand wringing within the hallowed walls of high finance.  In typical fashion the people who like to carry on their trading and associated activities beyond the public gaze are all a twitter because a bunch of apparently crazy outsiders are not adhering to the sedate rules of the game.  This produces truly odd results.  Normally virulently anti-government voices are...