Debunking Government Debt Myths

Center for Economic Development and Policy Research, CEPR Dean Baker When we hear about inflation most of us probably think of items like food, gas, and rent, but when it comes to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the most frequently cited measure of inflation, auto insurance has played a very large role in recent years. The index for motor vehicle insurance rose 0.9 percent in July. It was responsible for 0.024 percentage points of the 0.4...

Apparently, the National Association of Realtors has agreed to eliminate rules on commissions.“The NAR, which represents more than 1 million Realtors, also agreed to put in place a set of new rules. One prohibits agents’ compensation from being included on listings placed on local centralized listing portals known as multiple listing services, which critics say led brokers to push more expensive properties on customers. Another ends requirements that...

Originally Published at The Bonddad Blog by New Deal democrat Industrial production is an indicator that has faded somewhat in importance in the modern era since China’s accession to normal trading status in 2000. Before that, a downturn in production was an excellent coincident indicator for a general downturn in the economy. Since then there have been several downturns, most importantly during 2015-16, when the broader economy, most notably...

Real Estate Investor's Journey to Millionaire

Banking Sector Financial Crisis Unveiled

Matt McManus on Thomas Sowell. A review of Adam Shatz's biography of Frantz Fanon. Nathan Robinson interviews Kohei Saito on degrowth. I have not read Bob Rowthorn on neo-ricardianism in decades. I wish NLR made PDFs of old articles freely available.

If nothing is done, the Social Security Trust Fund is currently projected to run out in about 2033. At that point, projected benefits will fall by about 20%.The Boston Globe has an opinion piece about the coming Social Security crisis/crunch. It talks about how Canada deals with the problem. I have a subscription and so don’t know if the link below is paywalled, but here are the nut grafs:“Mechanically it works as follows. Every three years, Canada’s...

from Peter Radford Words are not ideas.  They are our means to capture ideas and make them tangible.  The problem is that words are a porous net that inevitably lets some accuracy slip away, but sometimes captures irrelevant detail that shines brightly in the moment and then dulls in the light of later thought. Trying to define something so a discussion can follow without ambiguity in meaning sliding in and muddying things.  Slippery isn’t it? How about this: “I sometimes wish we could...

BRICS doubled its membership at the start of 2024, and faces huge tasks ahead: integrating its newest members, developing future admission criteria, deepening the institution's groundings, and most importantly, launching the mechanisms for bypassing the US dollar in international finance.The financial plans are toward the end of the post. No details yet, but a plan is supposed to be presented at the BRICs meaning in the fall of this year. An alternative BRICs currency is not being planned at...