Category Archives: Economic fundamentals

“Australia has Baumol’s disease”

Yves here. I thought this discussion of Baumol’s disease would be of interest to NC readers because the issues are relevant for advanced economies generally, not just Australia.

By Cameron Murray, aka Rumplestatskin, a professional economist with a background in property development, environmental economics research and economic regulation. Cross posted from MacroBusiness

Why does the wage of a musician in a string quartet rise over time at roughly the same pace as wages in other areas of the economy, despite the lack of productivity gains in the performance of music?

William J Baumol solved this riddle in the 1960s. His insight, known as Baumol’s cost disease, is fundamental to understanding changes in the economy over time. If we are going to debate the shift towards a service economy, productivity, unemployment, health and education costs and government intervention in markets, we need to fully appreciate his insight. Unfortunately you won’t find his ideas in many introductory economics textbooks.

Bianco on earnings volatility and recession

Edward here. Economists are telling us that the economy is decelerating rather quickly. What does that mean for stocks, in either a recession or no-recession scenario? Jim Bianco was on Bloomberg Television yesterday with some insightful comments about stock valuations and economic cycles. Bianco told Bloomberg that he believes the likelihood of recession in the […]

Tape Painting or Real Rally?

By Marshall Auerback and Edward Harrison Marshall here. That was an impressive rally into the close in New York. Stocks ended up across the board. Yves Smith, who was off the grid today, asked “was there any news driving” the rally into the close or was it just tape painting. Here’s what I wrote: No, […]

Jurgen Stark = Credit Anstalt 2.0 (and Euromarkets Reacting Accordingly)

It is remotely possible that the EU officialdom will temporarily reverse the train wreck that started last Friday with the resignation of Jurgen Stark from the ECB. That was seen as a sign that Germany has adopted bailout fatigue as official policy. That in turn would mean that Greece will not get any more money lifelines (which as commentators predicted some time ago, means a likely banking crisis, which was the reason for them not to exit the Eurozone).

Mr. Market is giving a big vote of no confidence in European leadership, although the FTSE has reversed some of its early-session losses.

The Financial Zoo: An Interview with Satyajit Das – Part II

Satyajit Das is an internationally respected expert on finance with over 30 years working experience in the industry. He is also a best-selling author and a regular contributor to leading finance blogs – including our very own Naked Capitalism. His new book ‘Extreme Money: Masters of the Universe and the Cult of Risk’ is out now and available from Amazon in hardcover and Kindle versions.

Interview conducted by Philip Pilkington, a journalist and writer based in Dublin, Ireland.

Part I of the interview can be read here.

Philip Pilkington: In the book you describe ‘money shows’ which are presentations where financiers try to flog their wares to the general public. It really struck me how sleazy these shows are; like something out a carnival sideshow. Salesmen — you know, proper ‘snake oil’ salesmen — stand in front of a crowd and whip them into a frenzy, convincing them that they can all get rich.

I almost found the whole thing quite funny – that is, until I realised that many of these people were just trying to make ends meet. It’s well-known that real wages have stagnated in the last 30 years. And at the same time the financial markets have greatly expanded. These ‘money shows’ seemed to me to be the meeting point of these two toxic phenomena. Perhaps you could talk a little about this?

Employers Diss Obama Job Plan

Wow, this is just embarrassing. A raspberry from businesses, the object of Obama’s tender ministrations. And the reason? Basically, too little demand, something that tax cuts won’t remedy

Rob Parenteau: Revisiting the PIIGS Led to Slaughter Perspective – Implications of a Greek Default

By Rob Parenteau, CFA, sole proprietor of MacroStrategy Edge, editor of The Richebacher Letter, and a research associate of The Levy Economics Institute

Last year we provided an analysis (on the Naked Capitalism blog and elsewhere, including the Levy Economics Institute Annual Minsky Conference, and CBC interviews), based on the financial balances approach that suggested a number of problems could arise with the eurozone’s pursuit of what are called “expansionary fiscal consolidations”. Without a large and sustained swing into a current account surplus, the financial balance approach revealed that the pursuit of fiscal consolidation would undermine the ability of the private sector to service the debt loads it had built up during the prior decade of currency union. Simply put, higher taxes and lower government spending drain cash flow from households and firms, and that increases the financial fragility of economies.

Few options left to save the euro zone

Cross-posted from Credit Writedowns How should I begin this post? Let me start out with my former default position: I have always seen a sovereign default and restructuring within the euro zone as more likely than a break-up of the euro zone. I would say I considered the dissolution of the euro zone as an […]

“Welcome to Phase 2 of the Eurozone Crisis”

By Richard Baldwin, Professor of International Economics, Graduate Institute, Geneva. Cross posted from VoxEU

The Eurozone crisis moved into phase 2 this August when the contagion spread to Italian debt, Spanish debt, and most EZ banks. Radical ECB actions prevented a disaster. This column argues that the ECB emergency policies are unsustainable politically and perhaps legally. The only policy combination that EZ leaders could agree on quickly enough involves political cover for ECB bond buying in exchange for national fiscal reforms of the German “debt brake” type.

Quelle Surprise! Partitioning Bank Retail and Wholesale Operations Won’t Cost Much

One of the most annoying aspects of Life After the Crisis is the utter refusal of banks to take responsibility for the costs they have imposed on the rest of us. This is directly related to their efforts to fight any and all interference with their God-given right to loot.

Summer Rerun: Bankruptcy Cramdown Defeated: Banksters Again Prevail Over Real Economy

This post first appeared on April 30, 2009

In another disheartening development on the banking front, the Senate defeated legislation giving judges the authority to modify residential mortgages in bankruptcy.

Note that the popular description is often misconstrued in short form descriptions. Judges would not have had open-ended authority to make changes. The construct is that mortgages are collateralized loans. The mortgage balance is written down in bankruptcy to the value of the collateral, and the excess is added to the unsecured creditor claims.

Philip Pilkington: The Irish Establishment – Mad as Goats?

By Philip Pilkington, a journalist and writer living in Dublin, Ireland

Learn to say the same thing
What defeats people is a double confession
One time they will confess one thing
And the next they will confess something else
Talk to them, they will say:
Learn to say the same thing
Let us hold fast to saying the same thing”
– Cat Power, ‘Say’

In Ireland we used to measure our economic performance based on GDP (GNP actually, but we won’t go into that). Pretty standard fare for any advanced economy, really. Not so anymore. These days we measure our economic performance based on the government’s ability to extract tax revenue out of the general populace to pay for extortionate loans to our EU masters.

How is Your (Holiday) Economy Doing?

I’m a bit surprised that anyone can be surprised by the lousy jobs numbers for August. Consumers are worried and too many economists have been trying to draw trend lines through noise in retail spending data and call it proof that a recovery in under way. Broad measures of unemployment are stuck in the upper teens, big companies are continuing to shed jobs, small businesses on the whole are pessimistic, state budgets are under pressure and federal deficit spending is set to be reined in. With housing in most markets not having bottomed, the overwhelming majority of consumers having taking a wealth hit, businesses not investing and government not taking up the slack, where exactly is growth supposed to come from? The tooth fairy?

Chinese manufacturing takes a hit from abroad

The just released official manufacturing purchasing mangers index (PMI) for China shows a small rebound in August. The headline PMI rose from 50.7 in July to 50.9 in August, just slightly below market expectation of 51.1.