Downgrading Uncle Sam, Not America
An orthodox economist describes inconsistencies in rating agencies’ approach to downgrading US debt and their view of reserve currency status
Read more...Category Archives: The dismal science
Coffee Break: Healthcare and the State of Science, Plus Baseball and Abundance
Part the First. How Did the United States Get This Healthcare System? I distinctly remember the first time this question occurred to me, because as the child of a union household a visit to the doctor or the Emergency Room (trees were made to fall out of) was never a problem. I was twenty years […]
Read more...What’s Next for Capitalism — Reinvention or Authoritarian Rule?
In Capitalism and Its Critics, John Cassidy presents historical foes of monopoly, inequality, environmental peril, and authoritarianism
Read more...The Economic Consequences of the Second Trump Administration: A Preliminary Assessment
An overview of the economic impact of Trump’s second term flurry from some Serious Economists. They don’t find much to like.
Read more...The Ancients: What Can They Teach Us About Our World and How to Live in It?
I recently added a new volume to my Shelf of Little Books, some of which are not so little but all of which repay re-reading that helps me understand our world a little better with each successive encounter. The newest resident of the shelf was published earlier this year by Princeton University Press: Following Nature’s […]
Read more...Yanis Varoufakis: The Economics of Europe’s Descent into Warmongering
The long path that has led Europe to see big defense spending will be a lifeline, hence the need to stoke war fever.
Read more...“Is All Economic Growth Good?”
It can’t be said too often: what most economists call growth is too often what we here call groaf.
Read more...The 2025 Trade War: Dynamic Impacts Across US States and the Global Economy
Estimating the costs of the Trump trade war to Americans and foreign players.
Read more...Tariff Turmoil and the Money Markets: Yet Another Rescue Coming
In Treasury markets, there are no libertarians, only grateful recipients of single-payer insurance for ailing financiers.
Read more...Coffee Break: Advances in Limb Regeneration & Malaria, Plus Science & Politics and a World through the Lens of Tuberculosis
Part the First. Old Experimental Models in Biology Lead to New Knowledge. Developmental Biology began as Embryology. A few of us still kicking remember the transition and miss the holistic approach required to master the material. Early embryological models included sea urchins and salamanders, tadpoles and the chicken. Much useful research was done with these […]
Read more...James Galbraith: Wage Stagnation and Populism – A Comment on David Brooks and Noah Smith
David Brooks and Noah Smith defend neoliberal globalization by trying to ‘splain decades of worker wage stagnation.
Read more...When Illusions of Wealth Shape the Economy: Understanding Pseudo-Wealth, Macroeconomic Volatility, and Social Welfare
Why pseudo-wealth like crypto is detrimental to social welfare, as in the collective good.
Read more...Michael Hudson Discusses How Religions Opposed Usury, the Catholic Church “Interest” Rebranding, and More on the Evolution of Financial Rentierism
On the long-standing religious and ethical proscriptions against usury, and how and why the Catholic Church rebranded it as interest.
Read more...Distributional and Macroeconomic Effects of Trump 2.0: The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Poorer
The likely outcome of Trump policies are a recession, a rise in inequality, and a further fall in living standards of working and middle-class Americans
Read more...Complacency, Denialism and the Risk of an Economic Trumpocalypse
Why the downside to Trump economic policies are far greater than the press and pundit class are willing to acknowledge.
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