Tag Archives: Uncategorized

We begin in the US: …the Dyke March Collective also ejected three people carrying Jewish Pride flags (a rainbow flag with a Star of David in the center). According to one of those individuals—A Wider Bridge Midwest Manager Laurel Grauer—she and her friends were approached a number of times in the park because they were holding the flag. “It was a flag from my congregation which celebrates my queer, Jewish identity which I have done for over a decade marching...

The credit collapse continues:

Unionists are not theorists; unionism is an eminently practical thing. — Robert F. Hoxie  Theory and trade unionism are almost contradictory terms. — Edward M. Arnos   In accordance with this theory it is held that there is a certain fixed amount of work to be done… David F. Schloss Paul Samuelson once wrote that it takes a theory to kill a theory. He didn’t say it had to be a better theory. What would it take to kill a theory that never was? The...

from Lars Syll In modern times legal currencies are totally based on fiat. Currencies no longer have intrinsic value (as gold and silver). What gives them value is basically the legal status given to them by government and the simple fact that you have to pay your taxes with them. That also enables governments to run a kind of monopoly business where it never can run out of money. Hence spending becomes the prime mover and taxing and borrowing is degraded to following acts. If we have a...

Trumped up expectations continue to revert: Highlights The economy is solid, at least the service sector, but on the whole is losing momentum, based on Markit’s flash data for June. The composite PMI slowed to 53.0 vs Econoday’s consensus for 53.8 with services also at 53.0 and manufacturing at 52.1, both short of expectations. Services offer the best news with new orders and employment solid and optimism on the outlook particularly positive. In a special sign of strength,...

From Robert F. Hoxie, Trade Unionism in the United States, 1917: There is much scorn of unionists by economists and employers because of this lump of labor theory with its corollaries. This scorn is based on the classical supply and demand theory and its variants. Supply is demand. Increased efficiency in production means an increase of social dividend and increased shares, which in turn increase production and saving. Therefore, the workers cut off their...

from Jamie Morgan Understanding Brexit requires us to consider the political economy of tax justice and the abuse of wealth protection. At a time when a general election has dominated the press for the last two months and Brexit has been a shadow of anxiety – a most remarkable event that the political parties have been steadfastly refusing to remark upon in any meaningful way – it is important to recall just how we got to the current state of affairs; a state that Craig Berry refers to as...

from David Ruccio When I ask my students that question, they don’t really have an answer. That’s because, like much of the rest of the U.S. population, they don’t have much experience with unions, either directly or indirectly—not when the union membership rate has fallen to below 11 percent nationwide and is only 6.4 percent in the private sector.   And if you pose that question to neoclassical economists, the response is: labor unions cause unemployment, by setting a wage rate that...

George Borjas, perhaps the US’ pre-eminent immigration economist notes: Maybe it’s just me because I instinctively read in between the lines whenever I read anything about immigration, but I’m beginning to detect such a seismic shift in the immigration debate. We all know the party line by now: Immigrants do jobs that natives don’t want to do. As a result, natives do not lose jobs, and natives do not see their wages reduced. And anyone who claims otherwise is...