Tag Archives: US/Global Economics

“The Changing of the Guard:” the prescient 1980 book that foretold neoliberalism About a month ago I read the synopsis of an interview in which Thomas Frank described the near evisceration of the Democratic Party.  Here’s his simple version: “[T]he Democrats have, what happened is that some years ago they decided they didn’t want to be the party of the people anymore. They didn’t want to be the sort of traditional Democratic Party that I grew up with, the...

Lifted from Robert’s Stochastic  Thoughts Jon Chait Shoots at all the Ducks in a Row — and Manages to Miss (once) I admire both Jon Chait and Glenn Greenwald. They do not admire each other. I enjoy it when they debate. Sometimes they both make fools of themselves. Jon Chait wrote a blog post “The Alt-Right and Glenn Greenwald Versus H.R. McMaster”. The chance to simultaneously critique the right and the left must have delighted him. The post is a critique...

by Peter Dorman (originally published at Econospeak) “Rational” Optimism? I just finished this long, rather convoluted meditation on “rational optimism”.  Must we admit the world is getting better, getting better all the time? Really, there are two types of multidimensionality that need to be considered.  The first is that “better” is, if it’s anything, vector valued.  Many aspects of life go into its calculation, as well as the distribution of outcomes...

The Buchanan-MacLean Controversy The book, Democracy in Chains (with an even more lurid subtitle) by Nancy MacLean, a respected (until now) historian at Duke University makes a strong argument that the late James M. Buchanan of UVa, VaTech, and George Mason was the crucial link between the ancient states right racism of John C. Calhoun and the current Trump administration. From Calhoun, incredibly inaccurately labeled a “libertarian,” through the Agrarian...

In which I (partially) disagree with Dean Baker about the stock market Dean Baker complained yesterday about pundits who talk about the stock market in terms of economic well-being: As someone who routinely considers both corporate profits and stock prices in terms of economic well-being, I disagree — somewhat. The simple fact is, corporate profits are a long leading indicator for the economy as a whole, and stock prices a short leading...

On JOLTS, I continue to dissent The only two significant items of data in the second week of the month typically had been the JOLTS report and the Labor Market Conditions Index. I say, “had been” because the Fed has discontinued reporting the LMCI.  Here’s their explanation: Although the LMCI was reconstructed back 50 years, it was only published in real time for the last few.  I am disappointed.  Even if the Fed believes the LMCI was not giving them the...

(Dan here…posted a day later) The Financial Crisis Tenth Anniversary Yesterday, August 9, is being widely proclaimed as the tenth anniversary of the beginning of the financial crisis that fully crashed in September, 2008, with the recession that began at the end of 2007 plunging more profoundly and widely after that.  The specific event on August 9, 2007 was the limiting of withdrawals from US mortgage backed hedge funds by the BNP Paribas bank in Paris. ...

July jobs report: across the board solid HEADLINES: +209,000 jobs added U3 unemployment rate down -0.1% from 4.4% to 4.3% U6 underemployment rate unchanged 8.6% Here are the headlines on wages and the chronic heightened underemployment: Wages and participation rates Not in Labor Force, but Want a Job Now: down -11,000 from 5.431 million to 5.420 million Part time for economic reasons: down -44,000 from 5.326 million to 5.282 million Employment/population...

Apartment vacancy rate improves, but “rental affordability crisis” at worst level ever Over three years ago HUD warned of “the worst rental affordability crisis ever,” citing statistics that About half of renters spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent, up from 18 percent a decade ago, according to newly released research by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. Twenty-seven  percent of renters are paying more than half of their income on...

Apartment vacancy rate improves, but “rental affordability crisis” at worst level ever Over three years ago HUD warned of “the worst rental affordability crisis ever,” citing statistics that About half of renters spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent, up from 18 percent a decade ago, according to newly released research by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. Twenty-seven  percent of renters are paying more than half of their income on...