Nicholas Watt, “Boris Johnson invokes Thatcher spirit with greed is good speech“, The Guardian 11/27/2013: Boris Johnson has launched a bold bid to claim the mantle of Margaret Thatcher by declaring that inequality is essential to fostering “the spirit of envy” and hailed greed as a “valuable spur to economic activity”.
Update: “Lord Keynes” provides a great explication of Kaldor’s theoretical work on this subject. Back in the day when I was running a high-tech conference company, we had a favorite (and actually rather cruel) interview question: “What’s the best price for a conference?” There was only one right answer: “The price that makes us the most money.” […]
Based on this report from the Economic Policy Institute Federal minimum wage increase comes this EPI info graphic pointing to some useful comparisons for general readers: The inflation-adjusted value of the minimum wage is lower today than it was in 1968. If the value of the minimum wage had kept pace with average wages since […]
Stormy wrote in 2008 a narrative for the last few decades on trade…still relevent: Trade means jobs; trade brings money into plants; trade surpluses ripple through the economy, providing not only wealth to employers and employees alike but also moneys into public coffers. Consider it “outside money” flowing into a town, county, state, or country. […]
A few is more than two but not a lot. As noted below, I don’t have the gift which it takes to be simple. I really can’t manage 2 period models which illustrate my confused thoughts. My last post (which was messy especially the math in plain ascii and spelling) noted that the government spending […]
Via Reuter’s Scot J. Paltrow Part 1 Defense Finance and Accounting Service, or DFAS (pronounced “DEE-fass”). This agency, with headquarters in Indianapolis, Indiana, has roughly 12,000 employees and, after cuts under the federal sequester, a $1.36 billion budget. It is responsible for accurately paying America’s 2.7 million active-duty and Reserve soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. […]
Yves Smith and Dean Baker on Secrets in Trade
First “two Keynesian” is a phrase which only I use. It means a new Keynesian model with two periods the present and next period and forever after when the economy is in steady state. I recently noticed that Krugman’s models, which are much simpler than models I can think up and which have clarified my […]
The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco published a letter titled, Consumer Inflation Views in Three Countries, written by Bharat Trehan and Maura Lynch. The letter explores inflation expectations among consumers in the UK, US and Japan. Basically the story is that inflation expectations by consumers are tied to the level of oil prices and […]
Obstructionism has been the modus operandi by Republicans in Congress to oppose President Obama with special emphasis in the Senate. Through the use of the filibuster, the Senate Republican minority has been able to block presidential appointments or sway them to less likely candidates, block the appointment of Federal Judges to the bench, and obstruct […]