This is a nice writeup on what is occurring in states which have enrolled multiples of their citizens into Medicaid due to various initiatives and the ACA. There has been a rollback of ACA insurance levels with the Silver plan having an actuary of 94%. People making up to 200% FPL pay little or nothing. Mediciad eligibility was increased to 150% FPL. This was a good initiative by the Biden administration and the correct action to take during a...

Except for the beginning, mostly a copy and paste here. Housing is an issue in the U.S. There are not many appropriately priced house being built or used ones on the market. The same holds true for apartments. We have a lot of young families trying to figure out where to live. Then once they decide, they can not find the necessary housing much less the pricing they can afford. Now, I said it twice. Do you get the picture? The author has described...

Blog The UK’s Net Zero strategy risks entrenching inequality This government is relying on uncertain technology to get us to net zero and those on the lowest incomes could pay the biggest price. By Chaitanya Kumar 06 April 2023 Last week, the...

from Lars Syll Almost sixty years ago Milton Friedman wrote an (in)famous article arguing that (1) the natural rate of unemployment was independent of monetary policy and that (2) trying to keep the unemployment rate below the natural rate would only give rise to higher and higher inflation. The hypothesis has always been controversial, and much theoretical and empirical work has questioned the real-world relevance of the idea that unemployment really is independent of monetary policy and...

The Chinese people are such fanatics about educating their offspring that the Chinese government felt it needed to step in and give the kids a break by liming their exposure to both formal education (amount of homework) and informal education (after-school tutoring). Tutoring was a growth industry in China until the reforms curtailed it. It had already expanded outside mainland China and now the push is on to expand it further to make up for the market lost in China. It serves not only...

Washington is used to controlling the planet’s top tech companies and doesn’t want anyone to threaten its surveillance domination.The predictable result of this trend toward "weaponization" of commerce is already leading to de-dollarization, another consequence will likely be a bifurcation of the Internet into US-controlled areas and areas isolated from not only US control but also US access. Worse, it could spark Internet atomization, as countries attempt to protect themselves and the...

This is a reason I put "inflation"" in quotes — lack of theoretical (causal) explanation and problems with measurability since "inflation" is not directly observable, while "inflation" gets treated as if it were a "thing." It's not only complicated but also complex, since prices are affected by expectations under uncertainty.ConclusionMore research is clearly needed to understand the best measures of inflation to inform macro models, especially as the U.S. economy continues to respond to...

Video and transcript.Michael Hudson — On Finance, Real Estate And The Powers Of NeoliberalismAll or Nothing Foreign PolicyDanny Haiphong interviews Michael Hudson

It’s Wednesday and so I have a few items to discuss followed by some music. Many readers have E-mailed me asking about last week’s decision by the OPEC+ cartel to cut production of crude oil by 1.66 million barrels per day. Taken together with the previous cuts (2 millions barrels per day) in October, this pushed the price of oil up within a day or so back over $US80 per day. Many commentators immediately announced this would drive inflation back up and force central banks to go harder on...

As a further comment on “funded” public pensions (link to previous note), I just want to comment on the side effects of such “funding.” (To recap, a central government could create fictitious bonds to match “pension contributions,” which has the same cash flows as a pure “pay-as-you-go” scheme. The alternative Canada has switched towards is to buy financial assets with the “pension contributions” — although some of those assets would be reinvested in bonds guaranteed by the Government of...