Category Archives: The destruction of the middle class

Trump Never Had a Grand Strategy for China: They Were Just Tariff Tantrums

Trump’s tariff strategy is obviously incoherent, but other approaches like anti-trust to improve the US trade’s position are sorely wanting.

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

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

Offshoring killed American manufacturing jobs.

No, Productivity Does Not Explain Income

Why a widely-held view about productivity that is foundational to the claim that people are paid what they deserve does not hold up to scrutiny.

Bretton Woods Institutions: Enforcers, Not Saviours?

The two Bretton Woods institutions the have huge credibility deficits due to the policy conditionalities and advice they have dispensed to developing countries in recent decades.

Austerity Has Made People Less Prepared for a No Deal Brexit

The government says it’s preparing for a Brexit crash out. But ten years of spending cuts have made the people of Britain intensely vulnerable to economic shock.

Deskilling Among Manufacturing Production Workers

More evidence of how manufacturing workers have taken it on the chin.

Britain After Brexit: Welcome to the Vulture Restaurant

US business will asset-strip the UK, but that’s not all: the Pentagon will find the little-known fragments of the British empire very useful.

Michael Hudson: Why Frances Coppola’s “The Case for the People’s Quantitative Easing” Is for Banks, Not the People

A dubious proposal to continue over-reliance on monetary policy, this time with a quantitative easing scheme, instead of fiscal spending.

Mr. Market Swoons as Trump Administration Escalates Trade War with China With “Currency Manipulator” Charge

Markets are in a tizzy over the US-China trade row. But what might come next?

Mark Blyth’s Incisive Post-Crisis Takedown: “A Brief History of How We Got Here and Why”

Mark Blyth gives a pithy talk on the economic regimes of the modern period and what is likely to be in store.

The Military-Industrial Jobs Scam

Military contractors have used the threat of US job cuts to extract more dough from American taxpayers….and then cut US jobs.