Picking Apart One of the Biggest Lies in American Politics: “Free Trade”
How the Founding Fathers and successful advancing economies steered clear of manufacturer-destroying “free trade”.
Read more...Category Archives: Economic fundamentals
German Wage Repression: Getting to the Roots of the Eurozone Crisis
How Germany’s wage repression, a war against its own workers, has been exported to the rest of the Eurozone.
Read more...As QE Wanes, Real Costs of “Employment” Subsidies Surface
As the QE prop is removed, it will become more difficult to ignore the fact that “employment” subsidies were often simply “employer” subsidies.
Read more...Wolf Richter: It Starts – Broad Retaliation Against China in Currency War
Struggling economies that compete with China are going to protect their exports against Chinese encroachment via currency depreciation.
Read more...Greece’s Missing Drivers of Growth
This post mines an issue we’ve discussed repeatedly, that the heavy dose of “reforms” imposed on Greece succeeded in lowering wage costs without providing the expected boost in exports.
Read more...Low Oil Prices Could Break The “Fragile Five” Producing Nations
Five countries, and not necessarily the ones you’d expect, are particularly vulnerable to protracted low oil prices.
Read more...The ALEC Rankings: Does Smaller Government Mean Higher Growth?
Demonstrating why Menzie Chinn stated, “The ALEC economic outlook ranking is, in my assessment, a manifestation of faith based economics.”
Read more...Michael Pettis: Do Markets Determine the Value of the RMB?
A thorough discussion of the background and implications of the so-far modest devaluation of the RMB.
Read more...Why Bernie Sanders Should Add a Job Guarantee to His Policy Agenda
Bernie has unapologetically rejected sclerotic visions of what is ‘politically possible’. And now he should add the Job Guarantee to his list of issues.
Read more...Does a Strong Dollar Hurt Emerging Markets?
Conventional wisdom has it that strengthening dollar hurts emerging markets via a sudden exodus of host money. A new study argues that real economy forces are a bigger driver, specifically lower commodity prices.
Read more...A Pragmatic Approach to External Debt: The Write-Down of Germany’s Debts in 1953
Greece’s crisis has invited comparisons to the 1953 London Debt Agreement, which ended a long period of German default on external debt. Unfortunately for Greece, the motivations driving the 1953 agreement are nearly entirely absent today.
Read more...Is the Local Economy the Solution to a Post-Capitalist World?
Relocalization has the potential to increase political accountability and revitalize communities. But how do you make it happen?
Read more...Greek Debt Sustainability: The Devil is in the Tails
The debate over Greek debt sustainability is muddied by the fact that different analysts use different definitions. But once you use realistic assumptions, as in “tails risks” are actually pretty likely, Greek debt is obviously not “sustainable”.
Read more...Will the Germans Derail the Tentative Greek Third Bailout?
Human dynamics, which over time played right into the Germans’ and other hardliners’ hands in the earlier chapters of the Greek bailout talks, may now be working against them.
Read more...Turbulence and Stability in Financial Markets: China in Recent Times
China is a case study of how liberalization of financial markets has never contributed to stability.
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