SUNDAY, JULY 2, 2023 Weekly Indicators for June 26 – 30 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. Movement among the indicators continues to be slow as molasses, but an important bifurcation stands out: indicators focusing on services continue to show good growth, while indicators focusing on goods are either stalled or outright contracting. As usual, clicking over and reading will...

from Jayati Ghosh Abstract The title of this article is a riff off a publication of G. C. Harcourt’s 1974 piece, ‘The social consequences of inflation’. He wrote this in a period of the global economy that bears some strong similarities to our own contemporary phase when inflation is suddenly back in the global headlines. There is at least one significant difference: at that time, Harcourt highlighted inflation as the outcome of an excess of total demand in real terms over available...

Pretty self-exclamatory and not needing a comment by me. The Supreme Court’s ban on affirmative action means colleges will struggle to meet goals of diversity and equal opportunity, Economic Policy Institute, Adewale A. Maye After extensive deliberation, the Supreme Court has delivered a landmark ruling that effectively prohibits the use of race-based affirmative action in college admissions. Race-blind admissions processes will further...

As read at Naked Capitalism, Yves Smith writes . . .”This post provides a high-level debunking of the Fed/central bank approach of squeezing wages as the first line of attack against of inflation. It cites the views of James Galbraith. If you’d like to read a fuller discussion, please see his article The Quasi-Inflation of 2021-2022 – A Case of Bad Analysis and Worse Response.” NYT Says More Worker Suffering Needed to Bring Inflation Down...

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What some economists assume..

Education plus technology = increased productivity.Goldman shows how Krugman was wrong about the future of the Asian Tiger in the 90s. Those who lived through the similar rise of Japan post-WWII are struck by the similarities now with China. But China is a whole lot bigger and more consequential than Japan or the Asian Tigers. It is also bigger and more consequential than Germany, whose rise post-WWII was facilitated by the Allies to oppose the USSR. Now Germany is not only a vassal of the...

Some confounding SCOTUS decisions which do not have logical backing and are more partisan than normal. There is no standing on either of these cases. 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis This SCOTUS ruling is puzzling to me in that it brings up the question in my mind of when is harm done? “303” was not asked to make a cake. It did not refuse to make a cake. It assumed the law would be enforced upon them, if they refused to make a cake for a same-sex...

‘Weak, unpopular’ Macron using military means to quell protests: Professor Saturday, 01 July 2023 11:19 AM  [ Last Update: Saturday, 01 July 2023 11:19 AM ] By Somayeh Khalili The government of Emmanuel Macron in France is both “weak and terribly unpopular” and believes that resorting to suppressive mechanisms and even the military is “the only way” to quell popular protests sweeping the country, according to a political observer. In an interview with the Press TV website,...