Real-World Economics Review

from Duncan Austin . . . it is an empirical matter whether the Hand is stronger than the Foot, or vice-versa.  Unfortunately, various environmental and social trajectories indicate that the Foot is now overpowering the Hand in important ways. Note that the situation is not that markets are outright ‘good’ or ‘bad’ – as polarizing capitalism-versus-socialism debates so often quickly descend to – but rather how helpful or harmful current markets are based on how well they...

from Herman Daly and RWER issue 102 Let’s draw a big circle around the rectangle and label it “”Environment”.  The Earth-environment, let us say, has one input from space, solar energy, and one output back to space, waste heat. No significant material inputs from or outputs to space.[1] Materials circulate as energy flows through the environment. The inputs to the economy come from the containing finite environment and constitute depletion, a cost. The final outputs return to the...

from Lars Syll  In mainstream economics, both logic and mathematics are used extensively. And most mainstream economists sure look upon themselves as “twice blessed.” Is there any scientific ground for that blessedness? None whatsoever! If scientific progress in economics lies in our ability to tell ‘better and better stories’ one would, of course, expect economics journals to be filled with articles supporting the stories with empirical evidence confirming the predictions. However, the...

from Asad Zaman The two World Wars in the 20th century depleted the gold stocks of European governments and made a return to the (UK Sterling based) gold standard impossible. This led to the Bretton Woods conference of 1944, where leaders of the world came together to find an alternative, non-gold-based, global trading system. John Maynard Keynes brought a proposal for a symmetric trading system, but it was rejected in favor of the dollar standard, which transferred global hegemony from...

Including Paint It Black which was not on the UK version of Aftermath 2016 ABKCO Records, 2023 reissue

2023 ABKCO Records reissue of 2016 the Mono boxset Colored vinyl

Great tune, excellent musicianship, fabulous recording Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs Krieg did a great job on this one!

from Dean Baker Outlawing items such as marijuana or alcohol invariably leads to black markets and corruption. Since there is much money to be made by selling these products in violation of the law, many people will follow the money and break the law. They will also corrupt the legal system in the process, making payments to people in law enforcement and elsewhere in the legal system. The old line from economists on this problem is to take the money out, by making marijuana and alcohol...

CEPR Senior Economist Dean Baker appeared on NPR and discussed his reactions to President Biden's State of the Union address. View the full interview here: https://www.democracynow.org/2023/2/8/robinson_baker_duss_ramirez_4

President Joe Biden delivered his second State of the Union address Tuesday, touting his administration's achievements and laying out his plans for the next two years under a divided Congress, including on immigration, the economy, the climate crisis and more. We speak with Democratic Congressmember Delia Ramirez, who delivered a response to Tuesday's speech on behalf of the Working Families Party, and economist Dean Baker, who both applaud Biden's focus on income inequality and making the...