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from Dean Baker Voters in the United Kingdom caught almost everyone by surprise with their decision to leave the European Union. The push for Brexit was driven by nationalistic, xenophobic and racist sentiments. There is no point in putting a pretty face on it. But this vote is now a fait accompli. The question is how the leadership of the European Union chooses to respond. In the lead up to the Brexit vote, there was much discussion of punishment. Wolfgang Schauble, the finance minister...

Looks like another small decrease as the deceleration continues: Vehicle Sales Forecasts: Sales to be Over 17 Million SAAR again in June By Bill McBride June 24 (Calculated Risk Blog) — The automakers will report June vehicle sales on Friday, July 1st. Note: There were 26 selling days in June, up from 25 in June 2015.From WardsAuto: Forecast: June Sales to Reach 11-Year High A WardsAuto forecast calls for U.S. automakers to deliver 1.57 million light vehicles this month....

Weaker than expected, and turns out it was up in April followed by down in May as previously discussed: HighlightsMay proved to be a generally weak month for the factory sector. Minus signs spread across the durable goods report with total new orders down a very sizable 2.2 percent and ex-transportation orders, which exclude aircraft and vehicles, down 0.3 percent. The worst news comes from capital goods, a sector where weakness points to weakness in business investment and...

I have been criticised by among others, Professor Simon Wren-Lewis, for the earlier blog criticising the economics profession. To bolster my case, am sharing here ex-governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King’s, views on the profession. While his is an “on-the-one-hand-but-on-the-other” approach, nevertheless it is clear on the culpability of the profession. The quotation is from page 3 of his recent book, ‘The End of Alchemy‘ published by Little, Brown in 2016. “Since the crisis,...

If, as a result of Brexit, the economy crashes it will not vindicate the economists, it will simply illustrate once more their failure. We, at Policy Research in Macroeconomics (PRIME) call for an urgent, independent, public inquiry into the economics profession, its role in precipitating both the financial crisis of 2007-9, and the subsequent very slow ‘recovery’. Finally the role of the profession in the run up to the British European referendum campaign.  As this morning illustrates,...

from David Ruccio I know all about how corrupt a city can by. I live in Chicago, the “Capital of Corruption.” And I hear all the time about all those other corrupt cities, most of them located in countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, which often fall low in the corruption perceptions indices like the one produced by Transparency International. But for all the talk about transparency and the need to tackle corruption at the 2016 Anti-Corruption Summit in London, the host...

Remember the enthusiasm around last month’s move up? As suspected, it’s reversed and the 3 month average remains negative: HighlightsMay was a weak month based on the minus 0.51 result for the national activity index, one that drives the 3-month average to a minus 0.36 level consistent with below average growth. Production, not employment, is by far the weakest component in May, at minus 0.32 and reflecting contraction in industrial production and factory utilization....

HighlightsDespite another fall in rates, the purchase index is not pointing to acceleration for home sales, down 2.0 percent in the June 17 week with year-on-year growth slowing 4 percentage points to 12 percent. Low rates, however, are an immediate plus for refinancing where the index rose 7.0 percent. And rates are indeed low, at an average 3.76 percent for conforming loans ($417,000 or less) which is down 3 basis points in the week and at its lowest since May 2013. Not...

from Edward Fullbrook I publish also in philosophy, and yesterday evening it occurred to me that a passage I wrote as part of a philosophy book a few years ago might be of interest to economists open to reconsidering their metaphysics.  So here it is. [Beauvoir’s] view of desire and value begs to be compared, (and Beauvoir herself makes this comparison), to the one which underpins the stylized notion of rationality, tendentiously called ‘rational choice theory.’  Although indigenous to...