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from Dean Baker Those of us who have spent decades trying to call attention to the situation of ordinary workers, and their stagnant wages over the last four decades, are glad to see the media’s newfound interest in real wages (the difference between wage growth and price growth). They have been anxious to highlight the fact that inflation has exceeded the rate of wage growth over the last year. While that is unfortunate, it is also the case that this is not unusual. Here’s the picture...

from Ken Zimmerman (originally a comment) At least part of the problem here is that these economists seem to have made up a way of doing science that exists nowhere else. To be sure their way existed once among some at or shortly after the beginning of science in Europe.  Scientists are depicted as patiently piecing together a giant puzzle. But with a puzzle you see the manufacturer has guaranteed there is a solution. Certainly not the case with the work of scientists. This view remains...

from Yanis Varoufakis It [capitalism] has always gained pace through the incessant commodification of everything, beginning with land, labour and technology before spreading to genetically modified organisms, and even a woman’s womb or an asteroid. As capitalism’s realm spread, price-less goods turned into pricey commodities. The owners of the machinery and the land necessary for the commodification of goods profited, while everyone else progressed from the wretchedness of the 19th...

I always wondered how people could bear years of pointless slaughter in a Great War over nothing. Having seen how hardened people are to thousands of daily deaths from Covid, it seems if that’s just the way things are The saying “one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic” may have been coined during the Great War and not, as often thought, by Stalin. (Some previous statements in similar terms, but making a different point about the way war is worshipped) Share...

That’s the title of my latest piece in The Conversation. More soon Share this:Like this:Like Loading...

from Ikonoclast (originally a comment) Comments are declining on this blog. People ARE hiding in their holes. Holes can be comfortably furnished. Just ask a hobbit. Of course, when the holes cease to be furnished and the supermarket shelves are empty then things get a little less comfortable. You will note I wrote, “Every well thought out effort at sustainability postpones catastrophe a little bit.” That is the essential nature of life in an existentialist sense: postponing catastrophe...

from Lars Syll Robert Lucas, one of the most creative model-builders, tells a story about his undergraduate encounter with Gregor Mendel’s model of genetic inheritance. He liked the Mendelian model—“you could work out predictions that would surprise you”—though not the lab work breeding fruit flies to test it. (Economists are not big on mucking around in the real world.) Over the weekend, he enjoyed writing a paper comparing the model’s predictions with the class’s experimental results....