Category Archives: Guest Post

Is the So-Called “Manufacturing Renaissance” a Mirage?

38 manufacturing industries continue to decline and nine of 10 of these industries are the critical industries that are fundamental to the manufacturing process

Externalities – And Cheating – in the Financial Crisis

The magnitudes of booms and busts are amplified by two significant externalities triggered by aggregate shocks: the endogeneity of bank equity due to mark-to-market accounting and of bank liquidity due to ‘fire-sales’ of securitised assets. In addition to economic models, legal and political factors should also be considered.

Links 8/19/19

Phishing Equilibria in E-Commerce: Shopping Sites and Dark Patterns

Dark Patterns are tricks used in websites and apps that make you do things that you didn’t mean to. Shopping sites use them a lot, and the bigger the site, the more likely.

Links 8/18/19

China’s Ultimate Play For Global Oil Market Control

The main driving issue is the realization by the Saudis that, irrespective of the reassuring rhetoric of Trump and Kushner, their bitter nemesis, Qatar, is far more important to the US than the rest of the conservative Arab monarchies and sheikhdoms of the GCC.

De-Facto Annexation of Kashmir Means India as a Secular State is Ending

Some of the implications of India’s annexation of Kashmir.

Out of the Ashes of Puerto Rico’s Economy Emerges a Promising Currency for All

A local currency in Puerto Rico gets a foothold in the US.

2:00PM Water Cooler 8/16/2019

Today’s Water Cooler: Sanders, Warren, IA voters, the campaign press, Democrat “voter protection teams,” DCCC, consumer sentiment, housing starts, trucking, Dollar General, WeWork’s horrid IPO, Uber cost-cutting, Tesla’s robot car scam, tamping down yield curve angst, lending apps, Internet of Sh*t

A New Assessment of the Role of Offshoring in the Decline in US Manufacturing Employment

Offshoring killed American manufacturing jobs.

2:00PM Water Cooler 8/15/2019

Today’s Water Cooler: Biden, Hickenlooper, Sanders, legislative races, jobless claims, business inventories, manufacturing, productivity, Amazon and FedEx, AT&T, audits, Nader on the 737, submarine welding, Chilean glaciers, ACA marketplace random, Amazon ambassadors, college deans

Who Will Pay for the Huge Costs of Holding Back Rising Seas?

Combatting rising seas is a big ticket item, and one beyond the meane even of prosperous cities.

Inflation Data Shows Tariffs Are Not a Tax on Consumers but on Foreign & US Corporations

Yves here. It has been reported in venues like the Financial Times that importers who would face increased costs from tariffs on China were taking steps so as not to increase prices to customers, which includes making their suppliers give better prices and eating some costs too. With profit share at a record high level […]

Class-Action Lawsuit Seeks To Let Medicare Patients Appeal Gap in Nursing Home Coverage

A Medicare lawsuit winding its way through the courts should take some of the wind out of the sails of the idea of Medicare in its current form as a good way to implement single payer.