Actual markets in the American economy are extremely rare and unusual beasts. An economics of markets ought to be regarded as generally useful as a biology of cephalopods, amid the living world of bones and shells. But, somehow the idealized, metaphoric market is substituted as an analytic mask, laid across a vast variety of economic […]
We’ve already seen in previous installments of this series that since about 1980, I: corporate profits have soared, II: the slice of profits going to finance has soared even more, and III: wages have stagnated. Here we see what corporations have done with all that money. There is a limited selection set: pay taxes, distribute […]
This is another look at the idea I put forth here, that – contra the standard economic idea that consumption depends on wealth – I believe that consumption depends on income. It’s worth stressing that wealth and income are not independent variables. Wealth is the accumulation of unspent income plus returns generated on that wealth […]
Part I showed the money going to corporate profits, not to the salaries of working people. Part II showed that the finance sector has captured an increasing slice of the profit pie. Here is a different look at where the money hasn’t gone. The first graph shows Real GDP/capita and Real Disposable Income/Cap since 1950 […]
In this post, earlier today, I forgot to link to this article over at Naked Capitalism. The salient point is, that specifically for investors, spending is related exclusively to income, never to wealth. It goes on to posit that QE and monetary policy are killing demand. As Steve would say, “Go read it.”
Usually my articles present facts and data and try to drive down to a conclusion. This time, I’m going to drive down to a couple of questions. Recently, Noah Smith had a post on the subject of economic models titled Filling a hole or priming the pump? It did quite a bit to restore my […]
In Part I we saw that labor’s earnings have lagged far behind GDP growth. (More on earnings stagnation here) Meanwhile, corporate profits have grown at a rate that, until recently, increased over time, and they are now at a historically high fraction of GDP. Here is a specific look at the Finance Sector. The graph […]
INTRODUCTION 1) Rethug Speaker of the House John Boehner says that as a nation, “we’re broke“; Rethug presidential candidate Ron Paul claims America “should declare bankruptcy.” I say these two are liars, and at least one of them is crazy. 2) Tyler Cowan says “we are poorer than we think we are,” due to mis-measurement […]
This is just a short post to illustrate the magnitude of GDP revisions. I downloaded quarterly GDP data from BEA in June 2011. I went back to BEA this morning to update the file. Forgetting about GDP revisions, I thought I’d be adding 2 or three more quarters of data, but discovered that all the […]
Matt Stoller, the former Senior Policy Advisor to Rep. Alan Grayson and a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute has a couple of very interesting articles posted at Naked Capitalism, Why Ron Paul Challenges Liberals, and the follow-up, Naked Capitalism, “A Home for All Sorts of Bircher Nonsense” These are thought-provoking, in many ways insightful, and […]