Tag Archives: Uncategorized

from David Ruccio When it comes to artificial intelligence and automation, the current White House seems to want to have it both ways. On one hand, it warns about the potentially unequalizing, “winner-take-most” effects of the economic use of artificial intelligence: Research consistently finds that the jobs that are threatened by automation are highly concentrated among lower-paid, lower-skilled, and less-educated workers. This means that automation will continue to put downward pressure...

from Lars Syll The correlation between high executive pay and good performance is “negligible”, a new academic study has found, providing reformers with fresh evidence that a shake-up of Britain’s corporate remuneration systems is overdue. Although big company bosses enjoyed pay rises of more than 80 per cent in a decade, performance as measured by economic returns on invested capital was less than 1 per cent over the period, the paper by Lancaster University Management School says. “Our...

The employment rate in Finland: from a high level equilibrium to a low level equilibrium Is it possible for an economy to suddenly switch from a rather stable situation of high employment and prosperity to another rather stable situation of low unemployment which, surely in the longer run, puts the prosperity or large groups of people into jeopardy? Neoclassical economists say; ‘NO’! Lasting high unemployment is caused by real wages which are too high, which lures too many people into the...

As previously discussed, exports are falling and imports climbing, with lots more to go: Highlights Trade looks to be a major negative that will be holding down fourth-quarter GDP. The advance trade deficit in goods widened sharply for a second straight month in November, to $65.3 billion following a revised $61.9 billion deficit in October that was nearly $5 billion higher than the last month of the third quarter, September. Exports have been very weak so far this fourth...

This is the time of year when year over year growth tends to increase, pulling up the rest of the year’s growth. But note how that increase has declined along with the general increases: Along with what looks to me like Trumped up expectations actual sales remain depressed: Any expected Trump bump in home sales didn’t materialize in contracts for homes signed in November. Higher mortgage rates hit home sales, driving the National Association of Realtors Pending Home Sales...

from David Ruccio During the recent presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised to revitalize American manufacturing—and bring back “good” manufacturing jobs. So did Hillary Clinton. What neither candidate was willing to acknowledge is that, while manufacturing output was already on the rebound after the Great Recession, the jobs weren’t going to come back. As is clear from the chart above, manufacturing output has grown (by about 21 percent) since the end of the recession and is now...

Apart from the Trumped up future expectations and the sagging retail sales reports, expectations remain elevated: Highlights Consumer confidence shows no sign of slowing. The index is up 12.9 points since the November election in gains driven by older consumers. The level for December is 113.7 which is the highest reading since way back in August 2001. But not all the indications from the December report point to monthly acceleration. December’s gain is centered in...

from Jonathan Nitzan Theories of Military Keynesianism and the Military-Industrial Complex became popular after the Second World War, and perhaps for a good reason. The prospect of military demobilization, particularly in the United States, seemed alarming. The U.S. elite remembered vividly how soaring military spending had pulled the world out of the Great Depression, and it feared that falling military budgets would reverse this process. If that were to happen, the expectation was that...

from Asad Zaman This 7th post in a series about re-reading Keynes, starts the discussion of Chapter 2 of General Theory, which deals with the Classical (and neoclassical) Postulates characterizing the Labor market. The astonishing fact is that Keynes central arguments regarding how the labor market can fail to be at equilibrium, despite flexible wages, were never understood. As a consequence, the theory of the labor market is taught today exactly as it was prior to Keynes, and completely...

The cemetery at Lampedusa were the locals and the drowned immigrants from Africa are buried.