Who gets the money? Follow the assets. by Steve Roth Originally Published at Wealth Economics This post by Judd Legum at Popular Information (read and subscribe!) prompts me to revisit the issue of share buybacks. This passage in particular: It seems eye-popping. But is it? Even (especially?) finance and econ types don’t really understand buybacks from a big-picture, macro, national-accounting perspective. Here’s a shot at explaining...

Presented 17 July 2024 | MMT Conference | Leeds University

Jobless claims hold their ground against the most challenging comparisons of last summer  – by New Deal democrat This week completed the most challenging YoY comparisons with last summer. Recall that I suspect there may be some unresolved post-pandemic seasonality in these numbers, as this year’s increase starting in late spring has been close to a mirror image of last year’s increase. So if there is some real new weakness in jobless claims,...

Gold and silver also dropped hard on growth concerns. 

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Quantitative easing has amplified inequality. It drives up share prices, benefiting those who own the majority of shares—the wealthy. Meanwhile, the vast majority of Americans, who own a trivial amount, see no benefit. This policy has deepened the divide, not bridged it. Let's break this down. Mainstream economists often tout quantitative easing as a magic bullet for economic woes. They claim it stimulates the economy by increasing liquidity. But here's the catch: it...

It appears people will argue the economic and social positives of the different political parties over periods of time. They probably are different. So, EPI has managed to chart the differences. What the first four charts do is detail the differences between the two parties over two different time periods. One time period staring in 1949 and the next time period in 1981. A contrast in beliefs? Maybe . . . The last two Appendix Charts compare...

from C. P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh In the past three years, global food prices have been on a roller coaster, rising rapidly especially in the first half of 2022 due to a speculative bubble and then falling from July 2022 onwards (Figure 1). The phase of rising food prices led to increasing food prices around the world, especially in lower income countries—and this was obviously associated with growing hunger. According to the FAO, 122 million more people faced hunger in 2022...

Presented 15 July 2024 | MMT Conference | Leeds University

Here is the campaign speech Harris delivered in Wisconsin.  It’s good:  short, to the point, and upbeat.  She hits on the right issues:  Trump is a criminal, abortion, economic opportunity, Republicans cannot be trusted with Social Security and Medicare, etc. A patriotic framing that emphasizes that the United States is a great country could help present this bill of particulars in a compelling way.  The basic message would be “Yes, we have our...