Industrial production continues in near-recessionary trajectory  – by New Deal democrat In contrast to this morning’s good news on consumption, production continued its lackluster 2023 all the way to the end. Total industrial production (blue in the graph below) increased 0.1% in December, but revisions to the two previous months totaled -0.2%, so the net result was a -0.1% decrease compared with where we thought we were in November....

Continuing my discussion of the recent upsurge in pro-natalism, I want to talk about the idea that, unless birth rates rise, society will face a big problem caring for old people. In this post, I’m going to focus on aged care in the narrow sense, rather than issues like retirement income, which depend crucially on social policy. Looking at Australian data on location of death, I found that <a...

OverviewSince 2020, the richest five men in the world have doubled their fortunes. During the same period, almost five billion people globally have become poorer. Hardship and hunger are a daily reality for many people worldwide. At current rates, it will take 230 years to end poverty, but we could have our first trillionaire in 10 years.This report shows how a huge concentration of global corporate and monopoly power is exacerbating inequality economy-wide. Seven out of ten of the world’s...

Economics fails not merely to account for biophysical limits to growth but to account for actual and potential alternative provisioning systems. Instead, talk of ‘the economy’ makes an implicit ontological claim that there is only a singular form of modern economy: the capital accumulating, price-making market economy. Economics has then become limited to a discussion of market capitalism and how it can be maintained in light of its evident failings. Hence, a new critical orthodoxy has...

Read Yves Smith's intro for a significant qualifier.Naked CapitalismChina is the world’s sole manufacturing superpowerRichard Baldwin | Professor of International Economics IMD Business School, Lausanne; VoxEU Founder & Editor-in-Chief VoxEU.orgOriginally at VoxEU

The latest information from Japan suggests that in December 2023, its inflation fell sharply for the second consecutive month and that one might conclude the inflation episode is coming to an end. The Bank of Japan made the assumption that this supply-side inflation was temporary and would subside fairly quickly once those constraints eased. And they were right. All the other central banks somehow convinced themselves that the inflation was demand-driven and have been needlessly pushing up...

Decades ago, I read a column by Andrew Young, the former Atlanta Mayor and UN representative, in which he wrote that you should never trust anyone who says they aren’t racist. You should say I’m working on my racism.Recently, the former South Carolina governor and current GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley omitted to mention that slavery was a cause of the Civil War (it was *the* cause–see the Cornerstone Document, as just one exhibit). Now,...

Universities' Hidden Real Estate Agenda

Design-based vs model-based inferences Following the introduction of the model-based inferential framework by Fisher and the introduction of the design-based inferential framework by Neyman [and Pearson], survey sampling statisticians began to identify their respective weaknesses. With regard to the model-based framework, sampling statisticians found that conditioning on all stratification and selection/recruitment variables, and allowing for their...

Most state laws back the company when it comes to employment. Plus, you don’t have the cash to make a fight out of it. So move on to something better, forget them, do something great, chalk it up to experience, learn from it, and ask the right questions the next go around. Being let-go happens. Reasons could be because of the economy, job is transferred, boss does not like you, or maybe you are just to slow at acclimating to the company...