There are many seminal thinkers who are so well known they’re never read. This category includes Adam Smith, Thomas Robert Malthus, Immanuel Kant, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Fredrich Hayek, John Maynard Keynes and many, many others.
One thinker I’d like to focus on is Karl Marx.
Read more...Yves here. Varoufakis performs the important service of translating what is effectively a formal communication from Germany on its stance towards subject states, meaning the Eurozone periphery.
Read more...I’ve been gobsmacked to see that not only is Larry Summers on various short lists of candidates to become the next Fed chairman, but that Summers is also supposedly closing in on the favorite, Janet Yellen.
Read more...Yves here. As readers likely recall, Thomas Herndon, Michael Ash, and Robert Pollin of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst wrote a paper, “Does High Public Debt Consistently Stifle Economic Growth? A Critique of Reinhart and Rogoff,” which revealed serious methodological problems with one of the linchpin papers used to justify cutting government spending even in times of recession. Robert Pollin here discusses some of the bigger issues in the political and economic debates on austerity and the aftermath of the financial crisis.
Read more...Econ4, a group of heterodox economists, has released a short video and a statement on the “new economy” which they define as more sustainable and equitable forms of organizing “productive” activity and the resources that support them.
Read more...Yves here. Because the European slow-motion train wreck is turning out to be particularly slow, it’s almost become background noise in the US, almost a lesser version of the now two lost decades in Japan. But what is happing in Europe is less benign and less likely to be able to continue anywhere near that long.
Read more...Since Bernanke started talking about “tapering off” Quantitative Easing, the bond markets have freaked out. This is a very logical reaction once you understand how liquidity traps operate.
Read more...I’m a bit late to get to an article in the New York Times that ran on one of the slowest news days of the year, last Saturday, Warren Mosler, a Deficit Lover With a Following. Since Bill Black has since issued a good kneecapping, I’ll soon turn the mike over to him, but I wanted to add some points about the approach used in this heavy-handed exercise propaganda.
Read more...Yves here. While some of the concerns in this post are specific to Australia, they can be readily translated to other property regimes. The part that is missing, however, is that the US relies on “real estate taxes” which includes the value of the buildings on the land. Michael Hudson has advocated taxing land much more heavily, since unlike taxing capital or labor, it does not burden the economy with higher costs . As he explains in a 2009 interview:
Read more...Average national income is a notoriously imperfect measure of the average person’s well-being.
Read more...Mainstream economic discussions employ a false dichotomy. At one “extreme” you have Austrian economists who believe the current Federal Reserve policy is (or should be) causing inflation, malinvestment, and all sorts of other maladies. They think the nominal interest rate set by the Fed is too low and should be raised . At the other “extreme” you have Paul Krugman and “New Keynesian” company, who argue that the nominal interest rate set by the Fed is too high and should be lowered in some way. To the causal observer who is unfamiliar with the history of economic thought, these two positions seem diametrically opposed. They, in fact, are not.
Read more...If anyone doubted that Ben Benanke’s “we’re convinced the economy is getting better, so take your lumps” press conference after the FOMC statement last week was awfully reminiscent of 1937, the newly-released Bank of International Settlements annual report is tantamount to a kick to the groin. And to change metaphors, if the Fed’s sudden hawkish posture is playing Russian roulette with the real economy, the BIS just voted loudly for putting a couple more bullets in the cylinder.
Read more...Heritage Foundation’s distorted reporting of Ecuador’s economic success illustrates the lengths neoliberal loyalists will go to promote their bankrupt theories.
Read more...Yves here. Warren Mosler, who is one of the leading writers on Modern Monetary Theory, circulated an e-mail with his assessment of the state of the economy and the impact of quantitative easing and agreed to letting me publish it.
Read more...How many markets are in upheaval right now? We’ve pointed to several things that have been troubling about the Fed’s apparent view prior to the FOMC statement yesterday and the Bernanke press conference, which only rattled investors further.
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