Tag Archives: US/Global Economics

Iranian Demonstrations Spread to Oil Workers by Barkey Rosser  The death of a Kuidish-Iranian woman not wearing a hijab to cover her hair has led to weeks of demonstrations led by mostly young women especially in the Kurdish parts of Iran.  However, they have gained the support of young men as well, despite a severe crackdown by the authorities that has now killed over 100 of the protestors.  The latest development that marks this becoming a...

“GM Strikes $69M Deal to Source Nickel and Cobalt from Australia,” DBusiness Magazine, Tim Keenan Like the rest of the big three and other auto manufacturers, GM is preparing to go electric for cars and abandon oil. GM Detroit secured a new source of cost-competitive nickel and cobalt in Australia for its Ultium battery cells. This is coming after negotiating a $69 million investment with Queensland Pacific Metals of Australia. Queensland...

It’s that time again*: we have reached the stage in the business cycle when normally sensible economists are alarmed that the Beveridge curve has shifted up. Paul Krugman is (as usual) on the side of relative reason, but he miss-used the curve in this figure Here he uses the data *and* the assumption that there is a stable Beveridge curve which can be used for medium term forecasting to calculate a level of unemployment consistent with a normal...

“Patagonia: Life Imitates Theory,” Econospeak by Peter Dorman  When Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia, completed the transfer of that company’s ownership to an environmental trust fund, it was front-page news across the country.  It came as something less than a shock to me, however, because I had described a very similar structure in a paper I wrote a few years ago about “pluralist social ownership”. First, it’s interesting what...

“September consumer inflation: primarily a function of the fictitious “owners’ equivalent rent” plus new cars”  – by New Deal democrat Since last November I’ve been hammering the fact that the official CPI measure of housing inflation, “owners’ equivalent rent,” seriously lagged, as in by a year or more, actual house prices as measured by the most popular housing indexes. At the time I wrote that OER was only up 3.1% YoY and core inflation...

USDA has now dropped the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates in the much awaited October reporting. In a simple one liner, here is the gist of it – lower soy and corn yields this year (drought and lack of fertilizer – we saw this one coming), but wheat supply down, but higher than last year. Wheat is essentially a weed and has conditional consideration mostly to weather and also if the crop was planted, looks like we’re ok here. Here...

Latest mixed bag of articles for the week touching on many topics. The very first article implies there was a grant to the Wuhan, China facility. Not sure why that would occur considering all the ruckus which occurred in the past. There is also an article on the Jacksom Mississippi water issues. Jackson is a fair size town. Kind of wonder why that is even occurring. There is also an article about the Boy Scouts selling off their land to pay for...

Nobel Peace Prizes were awarded most recently. “The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded 103 times to 140 Nobel Prize laureates between 1901 and 2022, 110 individuals and 30 organizations. Since the International Committee of the Red Cross has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize three times (in 1917, 1944 and 1963), and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize two times (in 1954 and 1981),...

Weekly Indicators for October 3 – 7 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. This week’s headline was easy, because OPEC’s (and in particular Russia and Saudi Arabia’s) geopolitical decision – aimed directly at the November elections in the US as well as Western support for Ukraine –  to cut back production has already caused gas and oil prices to increase sharply. As usual, clicking over...

An Improvement In China’s Human Rights Record In XinJiang?, Econospeak by Barkley Rosser  On October 5, 2022, the Washington Post published a front section story, “Uyghyr crackdown eases, but Xinjiang;s scars endure,” by Eva Dou and Kate Cadell. The article documents the ongoing human rights problems and a lack of transparency in Xinjiang province in China, including ongoing use of forced labor in prisons in industrial parks, in the wake of...