by Joseph Joyce Capital Ebbs and Flows The Republican nomination of Donald Trump as its nominee for President ensures that international trade will be a major issue in the campaign. Trump views trade as a zero-sum game and the existence of U.S. trade deficits as proof that other nations have taken advantage of U.S. openness (= weakness). Tariffs are the primary policy tool to respond to the unfair treatment of U.S.-made goods and even the...

Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please. I’m now using Substack as a blogging platform, and for my monthly email newsletter. For the moment, I’ll post both at this blog and on Substack. You can also follow me on Mastodon here. Share this:Like Loading...

by Joyce Vance Civil Discourse Twenty twenty-four finds the Democrats nominating a Black woman to run for president. Said another way, a woman will be nominated by a major party as its candidate to be the president of the United States. The first time in our history in either instance. This will all take place in an upcoming convention. Kamala Harris is eminently qualified by virtue of both experience and temperament; if you haven’t...

Not MMT but relevant historically. How the world got here ((to dollar hegemony), as well as to monetarism, the accounting identity that is, as the basis of macro.  Adam Tooze is a historian rather than an economist, so he is able to shine a different light on the subject.ChartbookChartbook 310 The shock of the new: Dollar dominance and modern monetary macro in the 1920s. Adam Tooze | Shelby Cullom Davis chair of History at Columbia University and serves as Director of the European Institute

Next Crisis: GDP Growth Near Zero?

[unable to retrieve full-text content]I’ve just released Chapter 9 of my open access textbook. This chapter focuses on youth homelessness. A ‘top 10’ overview of the chapter can be found here: https://nickfalvo.ca/youth-homelessness/

Back when we were grad students at UNC-Chapel Hill from 1977-82, my wife and I made several trips to the Outer Banks. One reason was to visit her uncle and his family, who lived in Buxton, just north of Hatteras lighthouse. What struck me then was how many people lived in homes on the coast in spite of the flooding risk. Not only the storm surge from the Atlantic that washed over the barrier islands from the east, but after the storm passed, the...

To reduce economic inequality, we often hear the mantra of "trickle-down economics." This idea suggests that if we let the wealthy keep more of their money, they will invest it, creating jobs for everyone else. But this belief is fundamentally flawed. Studies show that wealth concentration leads to economic stagnation. When the rich hoard their wealth, it doesn't magically trickle down. Instead, it creates a desert of opportunity for the rest. The real solution lies in...

– by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. With the bond market anticipating Fed rate cuts ahead, it has already lowered mortgage rates somewhat on its own. That has led to a jump in new applications, and to an even bigger spike in refinancing. As usual, clicking over and reading will bring you up to the virtual moment as to the economic data, and reward me a little bit for my efforts in organizing it for...

Also depicted by Bill McBride at Calculated Risk – MBA: “Mortgage Delinquencies Increase in Q2 2024” WASHINGTON, D.C. (August 15, 2024) – The mortgage delinquency rate for mortgage loans on one-to-four-unit residential properties increased to a seasonally adjusted rate of 3.97 percent of all loans outstanding at the end of the second quarter of 2024, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) National Delinquency Survey. The...