Monday afternoon, 25th May 2020. A beautiful, warm day on which to watch our new overlord make his first speech to the nation. I refer, of course, to Dominic Cummings's press conference.The Daily Mirror and the Guardian had revealed that Cummings had gone to stay in a family cottage near Durham at the end of March, and that he had also been seen in Barnard Castle, about 30 miles from Durham. The country was under full lockdown at the time, with non-essential travel completely banned, so both...
Read More »The Political Economy of Modern Epidemics by S.Mavroudeas – MARXIST STUDIES, YORK UNIVERSITY
Marxist Studies in a Global and Asian Perspective (MSGAP) is a research initiative within the York Centre for Asian Research: https://ycar.apps01.yorku.ca/msgap/ Working Hypotheses for the Political Economy of Modern Epidemics [embedded content] Working Hypotheses for the Political Economy of Modern Epidemics By Stavros Mavroudeas 1. During the last 30 to 40 years, capitalism has become more and more prone to epidemics, in contrast to the prevailing belief that the advances in medicine...
Read More »The Political Economy of the COVID-19 Crisis in Latin America
Following my talk on the same topic, on the same venue, now someone that might know a bit more about what's going on, particularly in Brazil. Professor Mazat will talk this Friday, and I highly recommend it. To register go here. Btw, Numa is Professor of Development Economics in the Institute of Economics at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, my alma matter.
Read More »Study looks at the course of recovery for Covid 19
This is an interesting study. This link is to the summary. There is a link there to the full study. 600 people with active disease of over 2 weeks completed a survey to find out just what people are experiencing with the illness. I find the following most interesting: ● Early testing is crucial, and questions remain around test accuracy: Despite all respondents showing COVID-19 symptoms, 47.8% were either denied testing or not tested for another...
Read More »Bernie Sanders, Ilhan Omar, Carlos Menem, Yanis Varoufakis & Richard Durbin and 300 other lawmakers call for a cancellation of developing world’s’ debt – Washington Post
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) in a Wednesday letter addressed to Georgieva and David Malpass, president of the World Bank, called on international financial organizations to consider “extensive debt forgiveness” for more than 70 of the world’s poorest countries. The letter, which also called for significant fiscal stimulus to help stabilize the global economy, was signed by more...
Read More »The Economic Consequences of COVID-19 in Latin America
The video of my talk can be seen here.
Read More »Coronavirus’s priceless gift
The freesias that my daughter sent me are long dead, but the clematis in my garden is in full flower, and the flowers smell of vanilla. It has taken over six weeks for my sense of smell to return. But I was only mildly ill. For many people, the road to recovery is much longer.Initially, coronavirus was thought to be a respiratory illness causing cough, fever and breathing difficulties. But the range of symptoms that the virus produces is now known to be much wider. Headache, muscle pains,...
Read More »Coronavirus’s priceless gift
The freesias that my daughter sent me are long dead, but the clematis in my garden is in full flower, and the flowers smell of vanilla. It has taken over six weeks for my sense of smell to return. But I was only mildly ill. For many people, the road to recovery is much longer.Initially, coronavirus was thought to be a respiratory illness causing cough, fever and breathing difficulties. But the range of symptoms that the virus produces is now known to be much wider. Headache, muscle pains,...
Read More »Some brief thoughts on the Great Shutdown
First GDP numbers of the Great Shutdown were out yesterday. As it can be seen in the graph, GDP shrunk by about 4.8%. The data reflects only the first weeks of the stay at home lockdown of the economy in March, as the BEA report points out. Numbers will get considerably worse. You must add to this the increase in unemployment insurance claims, which since the crisis started has gone up by more than 26 million, as reported by the Labor Department. Note that the unemployment rate is still...
Read More »The Economic Consequences of Covid-19 in Latin America
For more information go to their website.
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