Tag Archives: US/Global Economics

by Steve Roth (Lifted from Asymptosis) How Perfect Markets Concentrate Wealth and Strangle Growth and Prosperity June 5th, 2016 Capitalism concentrates wealth. Ridicule Marx and his latter-day disciples all you like (I’ll help); he definitely got that right. But capitalism is a big word with lots of meanings, and enough ideological baggage to fill a Lear Jet. Let’s talk about something more precise: perfect markets, with ownership, in which individuals...

Via Brad DeLong comes two posts with observations that add to the discussion on our observations of the economic conditions driven by human nature: Figure 1 Paul Krugman points us to this notion: Should-Read: Paul Krugman (2015): WHEN VALUES DISAPPEAR: “Back in the 60s and 70s… there was much talk about the disintegration of… African-American values… https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/11/when-values-disappear/ …and how that was the root cause of...

June jobs report: great headline, but once again where are the wages?!? HEADLINES: +222,000 jobs added U3 unemployment rate rose +0.1% from 4.3% to 4.4% U6 underemployment rate rose +0.2% from 8.4% to 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 -130,000 from 5.561 million to 5.431 million Part time for economic reasons: up +107,000 from 5.219...

Reality begins to sink in for GOPer economic confidence While we are waiting for tomorrow’s employment report, here’s a little something to chew on. In the immediate aftermath of the Presidential election — as in, by the end of that week — Gallup’s measure of economic confidence soared, from its 2016 average of roughly -10 to a positive number and to nearly +10 by the end of November: In fact, while the confidence of Democrats sank, the confidence of GOPers...

Republicans help pass Illinois budget over Rauner’s veto For the second time in as many months, legislative Republicans have turned on their Republican governor for his refusal to back tax increases to help balance the budget. Last month, supermajority Kansas Republicans revolted against Sam Brownback’s six-year tax-cutting experiment, which brought the state persistent budget problems and two credit downgrades. Tonight (July 6) enough Republicans joined with...

Dan here…I noticed further writing on the macro side of labor and asked Peter’s opinion, and he reminded me of this post. by Peter Dorman  (originally published at Econospeak) Why You Should Never Use a Supply and Demand Diagram for Labor Markets You would know this if you read your Cahuc, Carcillo and Zylberberg, but you probably won’t, so read this instead. A standard S&D diagram for the labor market might look like this: It’s common to use W (wage) on...

by  Joseph Joyce The IMF’s Flexible Credit Line The policy conditions attached to the disbursement of an IMF loan have long been the subject of controversy. In the wake of the global financial crisis, the IMF introduced a new lending program—the Flexible Credit Line—that allowed its members to apply for a loan before a crisis took place. If approved, the member can elect to draw upon the arrangement in the event of a crisis without conditionality, and there...

Happy 8th Independence Day, economic expansion! In lieu of a more traditional Independence Day post, in view of the fact that the economic expansion turned 8 years old this week, I thought I would take a moment to highlight how far we have come.  Because as mediocre as some things are, we have come a long, long way since the dark days of June 30, 2009. Unemployment has fallen from a high of 10.0 to 4.2%, and underemployment has fallen from 17.1% to 8.4%:...

Robert Samuelson At The Washington Post Is Bashing Social Security Yet Again Yet again. I grant that he did not do  it at length or present a lot of clearly incorrect nonsense.  But bash Social Security he did, using an old ruse to do so, combining it with Medicare to invoke a long term deficit danger due to the two of them together, when in fact it is well known that it is the Medicare part of that projection of future spending that leads to all the scary...

Via Naked Capitalism comes Daniel Gros, Director of the Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels. Originally published at VoxEU. Here is the introductory summary: Trade and international financial transactions have grown massively in recent decades. This phenomenon, also called globalization, is often described as a ‘mega-trend’. Business and political leaders never tire of repeating that ‘globalization’ is the future, that it delivers more jobs and...