by Sandwichman The Sticky Wages of Sin “Only now can one fully understand the effrontery of these apologists.” — Karl Marx, Capital. “Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it is just the reverse.” — Polish joke (cited by J. K. Galbraith in Journey to Poland and Yugoslavia, 1958). David Spencer (2002) and Aaron Pacitti […]
It is not difficult to determine a dollar figure for Total U.S. Public Debt. In fact you have to round UP from the Treasury’s Debt to the Penny and Who Holds it web application which tracks that number daily. As of end of business Thursday that total was $17,472,051,696,926.14. Which is a lot of money […]
Paul Krugman wrote over the weekend… “Oh, and a word on Sweden, where the central bank is indeed on the edge of deflation but say never mind because output is currently growing. Um, does the bank have an inflation target or doesn’t it? Yes, the economy can expand some of the time even if inflation […]
by Sandwichman Canny Ca’canny Under imperfect competition, according to a 1960s Samuelson textbook, “The canny seller contrives an artificial scarcity of his product so as not to spoil the price he can get on the earlier pre-marginal unit.” The obvious corollary to this rule is that the canny employer of labor who has some monopsony […]
Michael Hatcher and Patrick Minford have a post titled, Inflation targeting vs price-level targeting: A new survey of theory and empirics. They tell us that Price level targeting may be better than inflation targeting, because if inflation goes down, it would bounce back over the Fed inflation target. Inflation targeting just brings inflation back to […]
Lifted from Health Beat blog by Maggie Mahar The Doctor-Patient Relationship What would happen if my doctor wore the johnny and I had on a fancy robe? See the cartoon from Member Stories on Healthcare Savvy
Sandwichman at Econospeak writes: Scoundrel Time Twenty years ago, the Journal of Economic Issues published a note by Warren Samuels on “‘Shirking’ and ‘Business Sabotage’.” Citing Thorstein Veblen’s analysis of business sabotage, Samuels was scathing in his criticism of the ideological double standard of the mainstream efficiency wage literature: Pejorative emphasis on shirking merely, but […]
It’s a familiar situation: business and government officials are promoting a new economic development deal which naturally includes subsidies for the investor. They may be touting a consultant’s study touting massive ripple effects and fantastic taxpayer return on investment. Should you believe them? Of course not. Consultants, whether they technically are working for the company […]
People are talking about low inflation and possible deflation. (Krugman today, and this article by St. Louis Fed, thanks Marko). Many think inflation will rise back up. Some think inflation can turn into deflation. The video above gives my view using a model of System Dynamics. (Link to first video describing model.) I show a […]
It is a familiar phrase on college campuses, often meant to serve as conversational kryptonite, the final word in an argument to which there is no response. “Check your privilege.” But Tal Fortgang, a Princeton freshman from Westchester County, had a response. – At Princeton, Privilege Is: (a) Commonplace, (b) Misunderstood or (c) Frowned Upon, […]