Mission Impossible: Why the US Cannot Reverse Its Manufacturing Decline
Debunking magical thinking about the US regaining its manufacturing mojo at scale.
Read more...Category Archives: The dismal science
The Macroeconomic Implications of Extreme Weather Events: Insights from Advanced Economies
Economists are starting to come to grips with the costs of weather/climate change induced disasters. But are their approaches adequate?
Read more...How Will Capitalism End? Essays on a Failing System
Upon reading this collection of essays (the title of this post) from Wolfgang Streeck and then contemplating our current world, The Second Coming of William Butler Yeats comes to mind: Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon […]
Read more...Economic Questions: The E F Schumacher Question
E F Schumacher of Small Is Beautiful, appeared influential in his heyday, yet his precepts seem not to have gotten a durable following. Why?
Read more...Economic Myths: Homo Economicus
Richard Murphy is starting to take part bad economic idea. This series may wind up having no ending.
Read more...Economic Justice, Desert, and Capitalism (Again)
Ironically, or maybe not, popular ideas and even those of economists about economic justice are at odds with ownership of capital.
Read more...The J K Galbraith Question: The Tyranny of Private Consumption
Can advanced economies free themselves of the pathology that John Kenneth Galbraith warned about, of excessive consumption?
Read more...The Milton Friedman Question
A critical look at the anarcho-libertarian (per his son) propagandist Milton Friedman.
Read more...Politics, Government, and Science During Pandemic Times
When asked in early 2000 how long I thought COVID-19 would last, I answered three years. Alas, it has now been nearly six years since a frightening respiratory disease was first noticed in Hubei Province centered in Wuhan. Retrospective analyses indicate the virus was already circulating in other parts of the world. It soon became […]
Read more...The Karl Marx Question
Karl Marx has aged well. What happens if you take his analysis seriously?
Read more...Michael Hudson: Who Writes the New Rules as Power Shifts Away from the US?
Michael Hudson discusses many of the responses to the US loss of economic dominance, from Europe’s self-immolation to China’s lending.
Read more...Milton Friedman: From Modern Monetary Theory to Monetarism
How Milton Friedman was an advocate of functional finance, the precursor to Monetary Monetary Theory before he wasn’t.
Read more...Liberalism as a Way of Life in the Twenty-first Century?
We have previously discussed what the Ancients can teach us. As it turns out, they can teach us much. But things get more dire by the day. Anyone and everyone can make a list of our pathologies. A week of reading the news shows us that as a polity, society, and culture we are in […]
Read more...Tariffs and US Dollar Depreciations: Not So Surprising After All
How conventional thinking on how the dollar would respond to Trump tariffs missed a key factor: retaliation.
Read more...James Galbraith: Crash in Top Economist Hiring Contradicts Elite-Favoring “Skill Biased Technical Change” Theory
Contrary to some economists’models, salaries aren’t constantly reset based on skills or technology. They follow the economy and politics.
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