Students will have a midterm soon. There will be some questions on the very likely shutdown (using the ISLM) and the minimum wage. The figure below shows the real (deflated with CPI) and nominal minimum wage for the US since 1939.No surprises in the story. Minimum wage in real terms peaked in 1969, a culmination of an expansion that started in the 1950s. It fell significantly starting in 1979, with the Volcker shock and the fixed nominal minimum wage during the Reagan years, and never...

The US government will shut down tomorrow. Two people are responsible. One is Kevin McCarthy who will not allow a vote on the Senate’s continuing resolution. The other is Senator Rand Paul who will not allow waiver of the absurd official rules of the Senate so the Senate will not vote on the bill before the shutdown. “ “RandPaul To avoid a government shutdown, I will consent to an expedited vote on a clean CR without Ukraine aid on...

This is quite a bit of band width to be recited at Angry Bear. The problem with healthcare facing smaller hospitals and healthcare is the lack of resource once you are outside of the metropolitan areas. You are pretty much on your own. If the resource is not there, it may be an hour or so away. Can treatment wait that long? It is something to think about. Saving Rural Hospitals – Problems and Solutions for Rural Hospitals, chqpr.org. I broke...

Angry Bear: I have been bugging Daniel to write on occasion for Angry Bear. Daniel did write occasionally and his commentaries were good. I know it is a burden. Well, here is one of Daniel’s comments. A good one as usual . . . I believe the interest costs are part of the story as to the perception of inflation.  Within that, so what if wages kept pace with rising costs (excluding interest), all it means is the person stayed even while hearing how...

Figure 1: Variation of Technique with Relative Markups1.0 Introduction This is a rewrite of a previous post with somewhat 'nicer' values for coefficients of production. I also expand on it with some observations on absolute rent. As far as I know, these posts are the first explicit presentation in the post-Sraffian tradition of a model of the prices of production with extensive rent and markup pricing. These posts explore the conflict over distribution among workers, capitalists, and...

from Lars Syll If scientific progress in economics — as Robert Lucas and other latter-day followers of Milton Friedman seem to think — lies in our ability to tell ‘better and better stories’ one would of course expect economics journals to be filled with articles supporting the stories with empirical evidence. However, the journals still show a striking and embarrassing paucity of empirical studies that (try to) substantiate these stories and their predictive claims. Equally amazing is...

If you want evidence that #Albanese will never change, check out his response to a Dorothy Dixer asking whether “ea parliament dominated by progressive political forces provided structural opportunity in the event the government pursued additional legislative measure” on renewables. Rather than saying “Yes, we will work with the Parliament” #Albo went straight on attack against the Greens, for forcing him to strengthen his pathetic Housing Fund. He’s a hopeless case. #auspol...

Initial jobless claims remain higher on a YoY basis, but do not suggest near term recession  – by New Deal democrat Initial jobless claims rose 2,000 last week to 211,000. The 4 week moving average declined -6,250 to 211,000. With a one week lag, continuing claims rose 42,000 to 1.670 million: Although this appears very strong on an absolute scale, we had a very similar sharp decline to new 50 year lows last September as well, which make me...

Before you start to question my titling of this commentary. Women are very much in the minority in this field. There is a forecast of greater job opportunities in this field due to EVs, etc. Read on and we can talk some. By 2030, there Will Be a 30% Shortage of Electricians as reported by Business Insider. Electricians | Data USA Bried Rambling Commentary and the Some Facts If you listen to the TV commentaries, there is a shortage of Labor...

Frederick Engels: The First Marxist?[embedded content] The 2023 World Association of Political Economy (WAPE) Forum took place in Pingtan city (Fudgian province, China). In this forum I presented a paper titled ‘Once Again On The Alledged Differences Between Marx and Engels’. The paper confronts the attacks by many older and newer anti-Engelsionists (prominent among them M.Heinrich and D.Harvey) against Engels and it refutes their allegations that (a) Engels has falsified Marx’s...