Tag Archives: Uncategorized

from Lars Syll How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it. Of this kind is pity or compassion, the emotion which we feel for the misery of others, when we either see it, or are made to conceive it in a very lively manner. That we often derive sorrow from the sorrow of others, is a...

This shows <a href = “http://www.businessinsider.com/employee-retention-rate-top-tech-companies-2017-8”>how long employees stay at major tech companies</a>: Not having worked for a tech company, I found these tenures to be pretty short.  I Googled retention at Google (I’m trying to stay on their good side) and found an article suggesting the  median tenure at Google is 1.1 years. I imagine this sort of thing is hard to measure from the...

from David Ruccio The election and administration of Donald Trump have focused attention on the many symbols of racism and white supremacy that still exist across the United States. They’re a national disgrace. Fortunately, we’re also witnessing renewed efforts to dethrone Confederate monuments and other such symbols as part of a long-overdue campaign to rethink Americans’ history as a nation. In economics, the problem is not monuments but the discipline itself. It’s the most disgraceful...

An economy on autopilot between Scylla and Charybdis Interest rates are a vital determinant of longer term growth. While the economy has remained on autopilot for the last several years, with almost no political stimulus or disruption — though that may well change next month — the Fed has to steer a course between the Scylla of an interest rate spike and the Charybdis of an inverted yield curve.  The Presidential election spike in long term interest rates...

from Dean Baker Last week marked the 82nd anniversary of Franklin Roosevelt’s signing the bill that created Social Security. The program has stood the test of time well. It accounts for more than half of the income for 60 percent of senior households and more than 90 percent for almost one third. It has reduced poverty rates among the elderly from more than one-third to roughly the same as the rest of the adult population. In addition, it provides disability insurance, as well as life...

I was looking for information on drug related murders and inadvertently stumbled on this old Bureau of Justice of Statistics report. There’s a lot of interesting information in it. One fascinating table is this: For context, here is the population breakdown over a period that includes the timespan in the table. I’m not sure this gives enough information to say what would happen if drugs were legalized, but I am interested in your thoughts....

It has taken nearly seven years, but the time has finally arrived for the introduction of a playpen. This is an area for irrelevant, nonsensical, unwelcome comments that may initially have appeared elsewhere but have now been moved to this thread to reduce clutter in the rest of the blog. Unfortunately, responses to the moved comments may also end up here, not because the responses are irrelevant or nonsensical or unwelcome (to the contrary, the willingness of these commenters to engage...

from Jayati Ghosh It is quite amazing that Karl Marx’s Capital has survived and been continuously in print for the past century and a half. After all, this big, unwieldy book (more than 2000 pages of small print in three fat volumes) still has sections that are evidently incomplete. Even in the best translations, the writing is dense and difficult, constantly veering off into tangential points and pedantic debates with now unknown writers. The ideas are complex and cannot be understood...

from David Ruccio Last fall, just before the presidential election, I posted a report on the perilous condition of the American working-class. Now, thanks to the Rand Corporation [ht: ja], we have a report on how terrible working conditions are in the United States. Most Americans between the ages of 25 and 71 spend most of their available time in a given day, week, or year forced to have the freedom to sell their ability to work to a small group of employers. Thus, as the authors of the...