If you are an investor the good news is that productivity growth improved sharply. Unit labor cost fell in the third quarter and the spread between pricing and labor cost widened nicely. This implies that earnings growth is accelerating and that my earlier fears that earnings expectations were too high is no longer a problem. […]

Yves Smith provides a snapshot of her perception of at least public thoughts from mortgage industry conference participants. It is worth a read. Denial in the Mortgage Industrial Complex I just came back from the AmeriCatalyst conference in Austin, which was a packed two days focused on the state of the housing and securitization market. […]

Talking Points Memo reminds us that there are still ongoing legal issues regarding our healthcare system: A three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals — comprised of two judges appointed by Republican presidents and one by a Democrat — upheld the constitutionality of a key section of President Obama’s health care law in […]

by Mike Kimel I was searching for some information and I stumbled on a post Scott Sumner wrote last year about Robert Skidelsky’s biography of John Maynard Keynes. I haven’t read Skidelsky’s book, nor do I know Skidelsky, and its been awful long time since I read Keynes, but this seems an odd complaint: I’m […]

by Linda Beale Nader Argues for a Financial Transactions Tax Ralph Nader provided an op-ed on the question of a financial transaction tax, “Time for a Tax on Speculation,” Wall St. Journal, A17 (Nov. 2, 2011).  He ties the need for the tax as a curb to speculation to the growing concern among ordinary Americans […]

Unless you’re really stupid, or bending over backwards to find excuses for the Obama Administration’s Geithnerian malfeasance, you should be less than impressed with Matt Yglesias’s attempt to argue that the Administration saw reason to be happy with overall employment (link to Brad DeLong). If you’re Matt Yglesias, you should be even less impressed with […]

by Linda Beale The right’s nutty claims about job creation–Gingrich and the estate tax The right is busy selling its program for enriching the rich to the working class.  As usual, the sales pitches are full of false and nutty claims pitched to fool hard workers who are uninformed about the facts. Newt Gingrich, for […]

By Jeffrey R. McCord of The Investor Advocate SHAREOWNERS OF THE WORLD UNITE! “Occupy” Annual Meetings and Court Rooms The spectacular fall and bankruptcy of Jon Corzine’s MF Global Holdings within clear sight of mostly inactive regulators reminds us that “the system is still far too vulnerable and the work of regulatory reform far from […]

Lifted from comments from Daniel Becker’s post here, reader PJR provides links to two good sources: Another data-driven study indicates income mobility is down at the same time that inequality is up, saying “Overall, the evidence indicates that over the 1969-to-2006 time span, family income mobility across the distribution decreased, families’ later-year incomes increasingly depended […]

Yves Smith has been on fire lately. Here’s an article on when offshoring fails. …As these industry examples illustrate, the tradeoff between cost and flexibility can be quite involved and difficult to evaluate. It now appears that the labour-cost benefits gained from offshoring might not be sufficient to cover the lost flexibility under many circumstances. […]