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Very modest growth continues from the lows following the crash in oil capex, and note that the numbers are not inflation adjusted: The painfully slow recovery following the crash continues, and note the numbers are not population adjusted: Trumped up expectations fading: Forecasters Lower Growth Outlook as Hopes for Quick Stimulus Fade By Josh Zumbrun Apr 13 (WSJ) — Following the election, respondents to The Wall Street Journal’s monthly survey of forecasters...

from Edward Fullbrook Steve Keen has a new book out: Can we avoid another financial crisis?  Keen, as you probably know, was one of those economists – Nouriel Roubini, Dean Baker, Ann Pettifor, Michael Hudson, Wynne Godley and others – who warned well in advance that the Global Financial Crash was coming if preventive measures were not taken.  How did these economists clearly see the crash coming when neoclassical economists did not, not even the day before it happened?  Keen’s new book...

from Maria Alejandra Madi A relevant feature of the current crisis in economic knowledge is the recurrence of the  Ricardian Vice. Joseph A. Schumpeter coined this term in his book History of Economic Analysis when he criticized the habit assigned to Ricardo to represent the economy by a set of simplified assumptions and to use tautologies to develop practical economic solutions. Indeed, Schumpeter rejected the kind of economic thought that mainly favours deductive methods of inquiry –...

The ECB buys lots of bonds from large oil companies, not from small and medium enterprises. Rapid money supply growth does not cause inflation (measurements!) New UK guidelines on how to estimate natural capital. Surely worth the effort! But some things do not have a price for a good reason. And when you look really, really hard at statistics of the stock of capital it turns out that statisticians measure the value of rights to the monetary yield of ownership of certain items. And not any...

from Lars Syll Of course economics involves cases where economists appear too reluctant to give up their favoured models. You can find similar stories in the hard sciences. There will be more such stories in economics because the inexact nature of economics makes it easier to discount any single piece of evidence. What I cannot understand is what leads someone … to argue against the use of evidence, and instead that “economics is primarily a way of organizing one’s thinking”. Astrology is...

from David Ruccio As we know, the share of part-time faculty in U.S. higher education has increased dramatically over the past four decades. According to the latest report from the American Association of University Professors (pdf), Part-time faculty today comprise approximately 40 percent of the academic labor force, a slightly larger share than tenured and tenure-track faculty combined. While the category of part-time faculty includes professors temporarily teaching on a percentage...

So the notoriously alt-right fringe fake news organization, the BBC, had an article entitled Different Nationalities Really Have Different Personalities. It begins: When psychologists have given the same personality test to hundreds or thousands of people from different nations, they have indeed found that the average scores tend to come out differently across cultures. In other words, the average personality in one country often really is different from the...

Worse than expected and downward revisions as well. Seems related to what looks like a continuing credit collapse: Highlights First-quarter consumer spending is in trouble. Retail sales fell 0.2 percent in March which is under the Econoday consensus for no change. Importantly, February sales are revised sharply lower, to minus 0.3 percent vs an initial gain of 0.1 percent. Vehicle sales round out the quarter with a 3rd straight sharp decline at minus 1.2 percent. Sales at...

from Peter Radford It is easy to be partisan. It is easy to believe in sweeping utopian solutions. It is easy to delude yourself that what you think is what everyone thinks, or, perhaps, what they ought to think. This is why I recoil from anyone offering definitive answers to complex questions. The truth is never so easily teased from reality. A healthy does of skepticism helps to keep us grounded. It seems we need that protection especially right now. Why now? Because I feel we are going...