A neat little analysis by Ross Eisenbrey at the Economic Policy Institute may be difficult for union foes to explain away. It shows the proportion of workers covered by collective bargaining agreements in major European countries and the US and then shows productivity growth country by country in the same group 1979-2005. Despite being the […]
Read more...The press is all a twitter about the possibility of a Bloomberg presidential bid (see ReutersNew York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Financial Times). Despite the New York mayor’s statement that he is not a candidate, his announcement Tuesday that he was leaving the Republican party was seen as precursor to a bid […]
Read more...An interesting shift is taking place in the economics world. Not so long ago, anyone who had anything to say against free trade was dismissed as being economically illiterate. In a surprisingly short period of time, the consensus seems to be shifting towards a willingness to admit that while free trade produces substantial benefits in […]
Read more...This is one of those days when there is quite a lot of good material, so forgive me for being brief. The Financial Times, on its editorial page, issued a warning to the US about getting chippy with the Chinese about the value of its currency. It did not stress some of the reasons argued […]
Read more...We generally steer clear of politics (not that were averse them, but they are well covered elsewhere) but we couldn’t resist this post by Eric Alterman, “The unfab four,” on the Guardian’s blog: I like to think I know a lot of smart people, but even so, nobody I know has been able to make […]
Read more...I am clearly showing my age. I am mystified watching both the Fed’s and the banking industry’s reluctance to tighten up on lending practices in subprime home loans. One would think this situation would, handled correctly, represent an opportunity for bankers. They have lost share to mortgage brokers, who were more lightly regulated and appear, […]
Read more...The US has spent considerable time and energy hectoring the Chinese about the artificially low value of its currency (although there is considerable disagreement among experts as to how undervalued it really is). The notion that the currency is the chief culprit has become so fixed in the public imagination that Congress is determined to […]
Read more...This Bloomberg story cites Federal Reserve research efforts that found that blacks and Hispanics were more likely to wind up with costly mortgages than whites. Even though this work is three years old and strong enough that FDIC chairman Shiela Blair says she is troubled by the data, no regulator has yet to take action. […]
Read more...A more accurate title might be “The Wall Street Journal Goes Out of Its Way to Demonize Chavez.” Narrowly speaking, Venezuela (except perhaps its actions as an OPEC member) are outside the beat of this blog. However, we do take a keen interest in the biases in the Wall Street Journal’s reporting, and this one […]
Read more...As we have said before, the Wall Street Journal’s news reporting isn’t all its cracked up to be. One pattern we’ve noticed is a tendency to put a positive spin on economic news. Now we’ve detected a second: failing to report when powerful foreign interests jerk America’s chain. When the US said that it would […]
Read more...One of the big bones of contention in the “what to do about global warming” debate is whether to use carbon taxes or carbon trading to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In theory, either regime could produce a satisfactory result, and many commentators prefer carbon trading, out of what amounts to an ideological bias in favor […]
Read more...Yet another instance of the Administration fudging the data in an effort to change the record. After a proud history of climate change denial, the White House now claims that the US has been more successful than Europe in reducing greenhouse gases. “The Political and Selective Use of Data: Cherry-Picking Climate Information in the White […]
Read more...As Paul Sonn of NYU Law School writes in “The Fight for the Minimum Wage” in the American Prospect, various state legislatures, responding to pressure by industries that employ low-wage workers, are exempting various groups such as “tipped” restaurants workers and home health aides from the new federal minimum wage requirements by exploiting ambiguities in […]
Read more...This Financial Times article, which describes the growing role that asset-backed securities play in investment bank profits, comes as no surprise. Not only are these products significant in terms of total revenues, but they are more profitable than the norm for these firms. But connect the dots: Wall Street is one of the biggest funding […]
Read more...Mark Thoma quotes a Washington Post op-ed piece by Daniel Gross that gets worried about the current and prospective level of foreign ownership of US businesses: …In countries that are resource-rich or export powerhouses, governments and government-controlled entities have amassed huge pools of capital. A report issued last month by Morgan Stanley economist Stephen Jen […]
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