Calvin Coolidge and Andrew Mellon A new paper by Ahmad Borazan on the 1920-21 recession, often seen in libertarian and Austrian circles as an example of a laissez-faire recovery. From the abstract:The US recovery from the 1920–21 recession has been presented as a triumph of laissez-faire policies and a serious challenge to Keynesian economics. This study interrogates this claim by using previously unutilised data and examines the historical development of the early 1920s recession and...

Με την συμπλήρωση 40ημερών από την εκδημία του πολυαγαπημένου μας Δημήτριου Μαυρουδέα θα τελεστεί μνημόσυνο την Κυριακή 22/1/2023, 12:00 στο Α΄ Νεκροταφείο Αθηνών. Advertisement Ρυθμίσεις απορρήτου

December real retail sales: the worst in almost two years  – by New Deal democrat Real retail sales, one of my favorite indicators, was updated this morning for December, and it was significant. It’s not just that retail sales declined -1.1% for the month both in nominal and real terms; it’s that both October and November were revised downward by -0.2% and -0.4% respectively, so the ultimate number is considerably worse than would otherwise...

“Job Market’s 2.6 Million Missing People Unnerves Star Harvard Economist,” (msn.com), Ben Steverman  Originally in a comment in this post Discussion on Solutions to Social Security, Angry Bear. The number I had originally calculated was ~2.6 million people joining the Civilian Labor Force. I had said: Since you addressed me, what group is dropping out of the Civilian Labor Force? “To get back to what the Participation Rate was in 2020, 2.0...

Why the Fed’s present rate hike campaign is almost unprecedented – by New Deal democrat Just how unprecedented is the Fed’s current rate hike policy? Since the Fed started actively managing the Fed Funds rate in the late 1950s, only two other occasions are similar. The reason the Fed is hiking rates is to combat inflation. But, as I have pointed out in the past, the post-pandemic Boom is very similar to the immediate post-WW2 Boom. In 1947...

Earlier this month, former NY Fed repo guru Zoltan Pozsar wrote one of his most important reports of 2022, in which he described how Putin could unleash hell on the Western financial system by demanding that instead of dollars, Russian oil exporters are paid in gold, effectively pegging oil to gold and launching Petrogold.Then, China's President Xi visit with Saudi and GCC leaders marked the birth of the petroyuan and a leap in China’s growing encumbrance of OPEC+’s oil and gas reserves:...

From an Indian perspective, it may seem momentarily that China’s economy is slowing while India’s expanded by nearly 7 percent (per World Bank predictions.) Can India catch up with China in a medium term scenario? This is where the devil lies in the fine print. The heart of the matter is that China’s GDP growth of 3 percent translates as a year-on-year expansion of its economy by a whopping $18 trillion. To put matters in perspective, China has added a little over five and a half times the...

Gov't cutting spending or reducing its "debt" is like reducing a pizza, while the number of people is the same or growing. Soime will have nothing to eat or, everyone will have a smaller and smaller slice. Sign up for my email list. Email me at [email protected]