In a previous post, I made the point that even if all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions ceased tomorrow, the half-lives of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere, together with climate change-driven gas emissions from melting permafrost and methane clathrates doom us to decades more of warming. The only ways to avert this are (1) carbon capture to actively remove gases from the air and/or (2) geoengineering on a planetary scale.It has been...

Plane got diverted to Albuquerque because we had a sick passenger on board. 

In recalling John Maynard Keynes’s revolutionary theory of interest, reviewing the doctrines Keynes sought to overthrow, and analyzing the structural transformations of the US economy, James K. Galbraith maintains there is no alternative to a policy of low interest rates. However, such a policy cannot be effective, he argues, without a radical restructuring of the US economy as a whole.Policy note. Levy Institute of Bard CollegeIn Defense of Low Interest RatesJames K. Galbraith | Lloyd M....

While the five original BRICS states have their geopolitical differences, they are finding enormous common ground on the geoeconomic front as trade volumes surge and trade routes multiply.Warming up but not yet ready for prime time. Progress is being made but much of the hype is premature. No new currency will be announced at the upcoming meeting, although it is being discussed. The issue now is an alternative payments system for settling trade among the BRICS nations.The CradleBRICS...

A “Big Picture” summary of why a recession still looks likely, even if it hasn’t occurred yet  – by New Deal democrat The below started out as a comment somewhere else, but it is too good a “big picture” summary of where the economy is today and not to post it here. I still intend also to take a more detailed look at the housing market, but since the below lays the groundwork for that, I’ll post it later (maybe later today, maybe not). What...

As taken from this column and other sources as well. Former Ohio House speaker sentenced to 20 years in $60 million bribery scheme | CNN Politics, Sydney Kashiwagi. A Little Background: FirstEnergy and its executives denied wrongdoing and have not been criminally charged for a scheme to bail the company out.  However, federal investigators say the company secretly funneled millions to various operatives to secure a $1 billion legislative...

Edited by Zichen Wang and now hosted at the Center for China and Globalization (CCG), a leading non-government thinktank in Beijing that takes no position on issues raised in the newsletter. Check out The East is Read by CCG as well.Longish and fairly detailed.PekingnologyIt's the economy - July Politburo meeting readout — Full translation, context, and notesZichen WangAlso by Zichen WangKishore Mahbubani's speech on The Asian 21st Century at CCGSee alsoZero HedgeChina's Politburo Aims To...

One of the most famous graduates of my high school is Charlie Ergen. He was two years ahead of me, so we were in the same building for a year. I knew his name and would have recognized him (student council prez, captain of the B-ball team), but we never met. There were about 1800 students in our high school.Charlie went on to get a BA from UT-Knoxville and an MBA from Wake Forest. Eventually, he became co-founder and chairman of Dish Network and...

Myth of Capitalist Equilibrium

Figure 1: Structural Economic Dynamics of the Price of a New Machine I am not sure that there is any great insight here. But this post depicts the evolution of prices in an example which I have been explaining in two posts. For some parameters, I have found that a shorter economic life of a machine may be associated with a more capital-intensive technique around a switch point. This can occur at both a 'normal' and a 'perverse' switch point. This finding raises difficulties for tradional...