Tag Archives: US economy

That's quite a crystal ball they got there at Treasury. It is unclear what is more ridiculous: that the propose gift to corporations will not only pay for itself but lead to a perpetual engine of trickle-down economic growth, one which has been refuted in every single instance in history, or that the Treasury expects the US economy to continue for another decade without a recession, which in 2027 result in an 18 year period of continuous growth since the last official recession ended in...

IntroductionThe American welfare state was created in 1935 and continued to develop through 1973. Since then, over a prolonged period, the capitalist class has been steadily dismantling the entire welfare state.Between the mid 1970’s to the present (2017) labor laws, welfare rights and bene ts and the construction of and subsidies for a ordable housing have been gutted. ‘Workfare’ (under President ‘Bill’ Clinton) ended welfare for the poor and displaced workers. Meanwhile the shift to...

Employment opportunities at debt collection agencies. Should drive up alcohol and drug sales, too.Angry BearAmericans and debt…Dan Crawford

New data shows continued weak inflation in US, Europe Asia TimesStill no Phillpsy-Curve David P. GoldmanUS tax bill gets huge boost as McCain says yes

Add the Trump tax cuts to the list of policy mistakes if it becomes law.Calculated RiskPolicy MistakesBill McBride

Abstract Corporate taxation is a perennially controversial topic in American politics. In fact, it may be the tax policy controversy that most Americans are aware of and even have an opinion about. Nevertheless, the purpose of corporate taxation is unclear in popular, or even for that matter, academic, discourse. In this paper we lay out and critically evaluate contemporary and historical corporate tax policy debates based on three common justifications for taxation: the “revenue”...

The latest data for net fixed assets in the US have been released, enabling me to update the calculations for the US rate of profit a la Marx up to 2016. Last year, I did the calculations with the help of Anders Axelsson from Sweden, who not only replicated the results to ensure their accuracy (and found mistakes!), but also produced a manual for carrying out the calculations that anybody could use. As I did last year and in previous years, I have also updated the rate of profit using the...

Last Friday I posted five economic questions I'm frequently asked. Earlier this week I discussed: Are house prices in a new bubble? Another common question is: Is a recession imminent (within the next 12 months)? Once again my short answer was: No. Calculated RiskIs a Recession Imminent? Bill McBride

US capitalism is again careening down blind alleys. Earlier it had crashed into the Great Depression from 1929 to 1933 before lurching into the New Deal. After 1945 it concentrated on rolling back the New Deal until it turned sharply to neoliberalism and “globalism” in the 1970s. That provided the comforting illusion of a few decades of “prosperous normalcy.” When the second major crash in 75 years hit in 2008, it exposed the debt-dependent reality of those decades. It also sent capitalism...

Last Friday (October 27, 2017), the US Bureau of Economic Analysis published their latest national accounts data – Gross Domestic Product: Third Quarter 2017 (Advance Estimate), which tells us that annual real GDP growth rate was 3 per cent in the September-quarter 2017, slightly down on the 3.1 per cent recorded in the June-quarter. As this is only the “Advance estimate” (based on incomplete data) there is every likelihood that the figure will be revised when the “second estimate” is...