One of my favorite topics, Inflation, Labor, and how Labor impacts Inflation. Or does it? Have We Whipped Inflation Now? cepr.net, Dean Baker The inflation hawks have been getting their way with the Fed for the last 14 months, but it looks like the Fed is prepared to call at least a temporary truce in its war on inflation, foregoing the opportunity to raise interest rates at its meeting this month. That would be good news for tens of millions...

This is an interesting take on small hospitals and also covering smaller hospitals in small towns or rural areas. It is an issue as the larger hospitals buy them up. Rather than invest in them, they close them down. One reveal is those hospitals closings coming as a result of what private insurance pays for patient care. This is an issue which both state and federal governments. should be addressing. Why are 600+ rural hospitals at risk of...

Revealed preference theory — much fuss about nothing Thirty years ago yours truly wrote an article on revealed preference theory that got published in History of Political Economy (no. 25, 1993). Paul Samuelson wrote a kind letter and informed me that he was the one who had recommended it for publication. But although he liked it a lot, he also wrote a comment — published in the same volume of HOPE — saying: Between 1938 and 1947, and since then as Pålsson...

The consumer may finally be faltering  – by New Deal democrat At this point I think the “smart” econ take is that either any recession is very much delayed, or even not going to happen at all. While everything is possible, I’ve argued in several places that if you date a potential business cycle peak to January of this year, the data doesn’t look so rosy. To wit, below is a graph with all of the main monthly data series the NBER has said it...

Media is pounding home the notions of a market and economic crash dut to renewed Treasury sales. It’s wrong!

"Capitalism" in the title of the post should be in quotes. Actual capitalism is highly efficient. The problem with it is that it favors capital and leads to social and political disruption. True capitalism is not practiced in the so-called capitalist world. Rather, the monopoly capitalism and financial capitalism that are dominant are centered on rent-seeking and rent extraction rather than on profitmaking from economic contribution based on the cycle of production, distribution, and...

from Lars Syll Little in the discipline has changed in the wake of the crisis. Mirowski thinks that this is at least in part a result of the impotence of the loyal opposition — those economists such as Joseph Stiglitz or Paul Krugman who attempt to oppose the more viciously neoliberal articulations of economic theory from within the camp of neoclassical economics. Though Krugman and Stiglitz have attacked concepts like the efficient markets hypothesis … Mirowski argues that their attempt...

Does AI pose a meaningful existential threat to humanity?  If an existential threat is one that can lead to mass death or human extinction, and a risk of extinction is meaningful if it is (say) at least 10% as large as the risk of a nuclear holocaust, my answer is that I have no idea.   But it seems clear that AI does pose a serious threat to democratic stability.  It will give anti-democratic actors a powerful new tool for spreading political...

Podcasts New Economics Podcast: Why asset managers own the world Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by Brett Christophers By Ayeisha Thomas-Smith 06 June 2023 This spring, swimmers in Kent were told to avoid ten beaches in the county due to sewage...

Angry Bear had written about the forthcoming state Medicaid-Purge the later part of May. The reason for the purge of many Medicaid enrollees was the ending of Joe Biden’s pandemic Medicaid enrollment program. It was a much needed program during the pandemic if one could not afford healthcare insurance and did not have Medicaid. Not being able to afford healthcare insurance was not the only gain from Medicaid. The extension of Medicaid postpartum care...