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from Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler Here we show the after-tax profit and market capitalization of the top 0.01% of U.S.-based corporations, expressed as a % of U.S. GDP. Updated from ‘The Asymtptoes of Power‘.

Back in early August, my old colleague James Montier and I released a White Paper on inflation. In it we argued that our baseline scenario was that we would see transitory inflation caused by the extreme supply shocks caused by the lockdowns. We drew an analogy to the end of rationing in Britain after WWII, where we saw temporary price increases in the markets for rationed goods. Further, we argued that any sustained inflation would require a wage-price spiral. That is, in order...

from Lars Syll The Coin-tossing Problem My friend Ben says that on the first day he got the following sequence of Heads and Tails when tossing a coin: H H H H H H H H H H And on the second day he says that he got the following sequence: H T T H H T T H T H Which report makes you suspicious? Most people yours truly asks this question says the first report looks suspicious. But actually both reports are equally probable! Every time you toss a (fair) coin there is the same probability (50 %)...

from David Ricardo You don’t have to read Marx to understand the lack of power workers have under capitalism. But you do have to read beyond mainstream economists and economic pundits. You might turn, for example, to the business school. Yes, I know, that’s a strange assertion. But let me explain. The usual argument these days is that workers have acquired a lot more power because of the scarcity of labor. When labor is scarce (basically, when the quantity supplied of labor is less than...

It has been a relatively low key federal election campaign so far, with a surprising amount of convergence on some key issues by the major parties. As a bit of blip, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau pledged on August 25 that a returning Liberal government would raise the corporate tax rate on the profits on all banks and life insurance companies, profits in excess of $1 billion. Further, these fin institution would pay a fee over a four-year period, a “Canada recovery dividend”....

from Peter Radford So who is in charge?  Who controls the flow of technology?  Is it us?  Or does the technology now control us? We live in a technology infused world.  Our current civilization sits on a foundation accumulated through the past few centuries and built of machine power.  We cannot separate ourselves from this cumulative support system without regressing to a pre-industrial way of life.  Which is something few of us either want or are equipped to deal with.  We have...

from Lars Syll But these more recent writers like their predecessors were still dealing with a system in which the amount of the factors employed was given and the other relevant facts were known more or less for certain. This does not mean that they were dealing with a system in which change was ruled out, or even one in which the disappointment of expectation was ruled out. But at any given time facts and expectations were assumed to be given in a definite and calculable form; and...

Yesterday I appeared on the Bullhouse podcast with Kenna for a very interesting discussion about a wide range of financial and economic topics. We discussed a number of different topics. Some of these were as follows: Whether there is a property bubble in the US and internationally right now.The potential bubble in the junk bond market and its implications.Why the risks in the market for rental properties are idiosyncratic this time around.How real estate is now a financial...