Gaius Publius: Neoliberalism, “Just Desserts,” and the Post-Climate-Crisis Economy
Gaius examines the connections between neoliberalism and the convulsions that climate change will bring to the world.
Read more...Category Archives: Economic fundamentals
The Jobs Report Covering February 2014: Seasonal Signs of Life But Nowhere Near Full Employment
Yves here. Due to a communication failure between Lambert and me, you are getting Hugh’s report on the monthly employment release late. Apologies!
Read more...Joe Firestone: No, Virginia, the Austerity Era Is Not Over
If the President’s budget were enacted by Congress, and OMB’s projections over the next decade hold, it would almost certainly mean economic stagnation punctuated by recession over the next decade. Would it also mean austerity?
Read more...Tax Havens Make US and Europe Look Poorer than They Are, Exaggerate Size of “Global Imbalances”
Peculiarly, despite the importance of tax havens, a pathbreaking paper published in 2013 by Gabriel Zucman of the Paris School of Economics, The Missing Wealth of Nations: Are Europe and the U.S. Net Debtors or Net Creditors? (hat tip Dikaios Logos) has received perilous little attention. Perhaps that’s because, among other things, it undercuts the Bernanke-flattering claim that “global imbalances” were a major driver of the financial crisis.
Read more...Don Quijones: Corporate Colonialism – Winners and Losers of Global ‘Free’ Trade
I think of globalisation as a light which shines brighter and brighter on a few people, and the rest are in darkness, wiped out
Read more...Randy Wray: MMT and External Constraints
To fix or to float, that is the question.
Read more...Wage Shares Fall in the US, Germany and Many Other Countries While Financial Shocks Hit Emerging Economies
ves here. This Real News Network interview with Yilmaz Akyuz, formerly the Director of the Division on Globalization and Development Strategies at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), describes how the problems that produced the financial crisis have morphed into new, no less troubling problems. One key part of this discussion focuses on how China has adapted to its considerably smaller trade surplus, and why having Germany as the new excessive exporter poses new perils to the global economy.
Read more...Gaius Publius: Rising Inequality – Recovery Occurring Almost Exclusively Among the Wealthy
America’s income inequality has grown so wide that the current “recovery” is driven primarily by the upper fifth of income earners, as revealed by the latest consumer spending data.
Read more...Joe Firestone: Dear Dr. Krugman – Please Let Me Explain
Paul Krugman can’t explain why the deficit issue has suddenly dropped off the agenda. Perhaps I can help.
Read more...Wolf Richter: Cracks In The Tech Bubble (That Doesn’t Exist)
After having denied feverishly that any kind of bubble exists, people watch incredulously as the hot air hisses out of the very bubble whose existence they’re still denying. And afterwards, everyone had seen it coming. Because cracks had been visible for a long time.
One of the cracks is Twitter.
Read more...Philip Pilkington: Paul Krugman Pushes Factually Inaccurate Arguments About Argentina to Support Discredited Monetarist Ideas
Yves here. With Argentina one of the emerging markets economies whose currency has taken a huge tumble, its aggressive pro-labor, redistribution-oriented policies have come under attack (as an aside, one has to note that Turkey, which was touted as a model emerging economy a few years back, is also fighting a currency downspiral). And a predictable by-product is that some of Argentina’s policies have been misrepresented. For instance, it’s widely accused of “living beyond its means”. Yet as this post shows, the government ran surpluses in eight of the past ten years.
Read more...Danger of Global Recession After 30 Years of Neoliberal Counterrevolution
Heiner Flassbeck is one of the few economists to get into positions of influence despite being firmly opposed to the prevailing doctrine of neoliberalism. He’s also direct and articulate.
Read more...Yanis Varoufakis: Germany’s Choice: Authoritarianism or Hegemony? (*)
For those of us who grew up under totalitarian regimes, it is noteworthy that Europeans are resorting to a time-honoured tradition: telling jokes as a form of defiance.
Read more...Market Rout Continues, Proving Abject Failure of Fed’s Forecasts and Policies (Updated)
In case you missed it, it’s ugly out there. US markets swooned as an unexpectedly weak manufacturing report, the ISM, was so bad it couldn’t be attributed solely to bad weather and deepened investor funk.
Read more...Emerging Markets Contagion Starting to Hit Eurozone
Emerging markets-related disruption continued overnight, as the Nikkei fell nearly 2%, pounded by the rise in the yen due to its status as a flight currency. Other Asian markets took a hit as well, with only Australia emerging relatively unscathed.
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