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NIRP is quickly becoming a consensus policy within the economics establishment. This paper argues that consensus is dangerously wrong, resting on flawed theory and flawed policy assessment. Regarding theory, NIRP draws on fallacious pre-Keynesian economic logic that asserts interest rate adjustment can ensure full employment. That pre-Keynesian logic has been augmented by ZLB economics which [...]

All models by necessity distort reality in one way or another.  A sculptor, when modelling in stone or clay, does not try to clone Nature; he highlights some things, ignores others, idealizes or abstracts some more, to achieve an effect. Likewise a scientist must necessarily pick and choose among various aspects of reality to incorporate into a model.  An economist makes assumptions about how markets work, how businesses operate, how people make financial decisions.  Any one of these...

. . . an economy is always in one of four possible states depending on the presence or absence of lenders (savers) and borrowers (investors). They are as follows: (1) both lenders and borrowers are present in sufficient numbers, (2) there are borrowers but not enough lenders even at high interest rates, (3) there are lenders but not enough borrowers even at low interest rates, and (4) both lenders and borrowers are absent. These four states are illustrated in Exhibit 2. Of the four, only...

from Peter Radford This is not a time to dwell on the inconsistencies and even contradictions of the recent uprising of populism in the western world. Treat it as a fact. It just is. For there can be no mistaking the trend: people, large numbers of people, in a large swathe of Europe and America really are unhappy with their lot in life. Really unhappy. Fully 52% of Republican supporters of Donald Trump tell pollsters that they are angry with the way the country is going. Not just unhappy...

It looks like the SNB (Swiss National Bank- the central bank) has been building $ reserves faster than euro reserves, which has worked to support the $ vs the euro. That is, when they were buying euro to keep their currency down they were selling quite a few of those euro for $ to keep their portfolio ‘balanced’. And for the last two quarters reported below, $ holdings went up about 12.5 billion while euro holding fell by about 4 billion, which means the shifting is...

Today’s Neoliberalism had nearly silenced serious left dissent by the late 1990s, or successfully isolated it in remote academic corners.  Bill Clinton’s two terms in the 1990s are proof of that. And there is the continuing tension between Neoliberal economics and democracy: notice the desperate, barely concealed attempt by the Republican Right to shrink the franchise, using as one of its main levers the racial stigmas from “The Great Incarceration” and the yet to be proven accusations of...

from Asad Zaman Ideology and Science are diametrically opposed to each other. An ideology is a set of beliefs that is maintained even in face of strong empirical evidence to the contrary. Science is primarily concerned with explaining the empirical evidence. Theories which conflict with observations are rejected.  This does not mean that ideology is necessarily wrong or bad – we must maintain our belief in justice, morality, honesty, trust, integrity without any empirical evidence;...

from Maria Alejandra Madi In the post-war boom era of 1945 to 1971, the U.S. surplus was at the center of the global economic order. Throughout the Bretton Woods period, the United States recycled part of its surplus via foreign direct investment – mainly in Western Europe and also in Japan. Within the system of international economic flows, the U.S. exported goods to the rest of the world and also finance these purchases.  Besides, the United States created demand for the exports of...

A bit less than expected- nothing to cause the Fed to be alarmed. You’d think that by now they’d realize that all that rate cutting and so called ‘money printing’ has nothing to do with the price level or ‘accommodation’…: Highlights Price pressures evident the last two months down the supply chain are not yet appearing in consumer prices where the CPI rose only 0.2 percent in June for a weak year-on-year rate that is not going in the right direction, at plus 1.0 percent vs...

It’s hard not to notice, during the American Presidential election drama, that despite all the debates and speeches, and multiple candidates, the terms “Neoliberalism” and “austerity” have yet to be employed, much less explained, these being the two necessary words to describe the dominant economic “regime” of the past 35 years. And this despite the fact that most observers recognize that a “populist revolt” driven by economic unhappiness is underway via the campaigns of Donald Trump and...