Tag Archives: Uncategorized

These sales are reported based on actual closings, and they look to have flattened around the 5.5 million/yr rate. But that was before lenders hiked mortgage rates due to Trumpenomics frears, and mortgage purchase apps did drop a full 6% last week. And this number is not ‘population adjusted’: Talk about cheerleading- the order book remains in contraction: UK Factory Orders Rise in November: CBI The Confederation of British Industry order book balance rose to -3 in November...

from David Ruccio Yes, the late Richard Rorty got it spot on: Members of labor unions, and unorganized unskilled workers, will sooner or later realize that their government is not even trying to prevent wages from sinking or to prevent jobs from being exported. Around the same time, they will realize that suburban white-collar workers—themselves desperately afraid of being downsized—are not going to let themselves be taxed to provide social benefits for anyone else. At that point,...

from Asad Zaman The first post on Reading Keynes provided an outline of the reasons why this is a good idea. It is clear that economics is broken. We need a new macroeconomics for the 21st century, one which can solve the massive problems which humanity as a whole is facing on political, social, economic, and environmental dimensions. Keynes faced similar problems, and found solutions which guided economic policy in the mid twentieth century. It is always useful to absorb the insights of...

A new paper by Joseph Stiglitz (it might be that he has been holding these ‘heterodox’ (better: common sense) views for some time already): In the aftermath of the Great Recession, there is a growing consensus, even among central bank officials, concerning the limitations of monetary policy. This paper provides an explanation for the ineffectiveness of monetary policy, and in doing so provides a new framework for thinking about monetary policy and macro-economic activity. What matters is...

Still in the red: This is not a good sign for global demand. And Japan’s continuing trade surplus recently enhanced by the falling yen isn’t a positive for US GDP: Japan’s trade surplus grows 4.7-fold in October Nov 21 (Kyodo) — Japan’s trade surplus expanded 4.7-fold in October from a year earlier to 496.17 billion yen ($4.5 billion). The value of exports dropped 10.3 percent from a year earlier to 5.87 trillion yen while imports plunged 16.5 percent to 5.37 trillion yen....

from Asad Zaman I am planning a sequence of posts on re-reading Keynes, where I will try to go through the General Theory. This first post explains my motivations for re-reading Keynes. As always, my primary motive is self-education; this will force me to go through the book again — I first read it in my first year graduate course on Macroeconomics at Stanford in 1975, when our teacher Duncan Foley was having doubts about modern macro theories, and decided to go back to the original...

So, ‘What’s it going to be then, eh’? Will we let migration wreck the EU or will we opt for sound macro policies? The non-far right should double down on the present freedom of movement of people inside the EU. But only when credible macro-economic demand and welfare policies are installed. Otherwise, the internal inconsistencies of the present macro-economic set up will fracture the EU. Which means that the freedom of capital flows, one of the other EU freedoms, might have to be...

Not good: Said Yellen: “The long-run deficit probably needs to be kept in mind.”http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2016/11/17/yellen-fed-track-dec-rate-hike/93991628/ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-17/yellen-signals-fed-won-t-be-cowed-after-trump-s-election-victory “In addition, with the debt-to-GDP ratio at around 77 percent there is not a lot of fiscal space should a shock to the economy occur, an adverse shock that did require fiscal stimulus,” she said....

Nice move up after a large move down. Note that the average of the last two months is about where this series has been. And, again, it’s the permits that count, and they are about the same as last month. And not to forget mortgage applications to buy homes fell a full 6% last week after rates went up in response to the election. Highlights In data that will lift estimates for fourth-quarter GDP, housing starts surged 25.5 percent in October to a 1.323 million annualized...

The big stupid continues uninterrupted from regime to regime: Documentary Of The Week: Stephen Bannon Explains America’s Problems By John Lounsburry Nov 15 (Econintersect) — Econintersect: This lecture was presented to the inaugural session of the Liberty Restoration Foundation in Orlando, FL October, 2011. Stephen Bannon, the CEO of Donald Trump’s successful presidential campaign and to-be Chief Strategist in the Trump White House, describes his view of what is wrong with...