Via Alternet comes this disturbing story. Deborah Calley told WITI that she paid cash for her dream home in 2010. She had thought that it would make raising two children easier while she was recovering from the traumatic car accident. But that dream was shattered when she was notified that the county was foreclosing on […]
Kalamazoo County Michigan…People and Offices to Write to Protest the Stealing of a Home
Zombie Firms smirk with Fed’s rate decision
Now that the Fed has sent the message that nominal rates will stay at the ZLB for a considerable time after October, let’s revisit the concept of the Zombie firm. The ZLB Fed rate makes it more likely that zombie firms will continue to limp on… Zombie firms are not good for society. The main […]
Wisconsin’s Utilities War on Energy Efficient Customers
Having raised a family in Mad City, Wisconsin (a place former governor Dreyfuss called “77 square miles surrounded by reality” and others calling it the Left Coast of Wisconsin, I found the state to be open to new ideas and more so than what is found in other states. Of course things have changed with […]
The Bigger Question behind Greg Mankiw’s version of the Taylor Rule
Greg Mankiw posted about his version of the Taylor rule. He basically sees the Fed rate heading into positive territory, which would indicate that the Fed rate should start rising according to the rule. However, he also sees the need to allow the Fed rate to now stay below a rule rate in order to […]
Why the Rich Hate Inflation: Because They’re Creditors?
Paul Krugman and assorted others have been puzzling at this question recently, one that I’ve been grinding an axe about for some years. For the first time, I think, Krugman’s highlighted the explanation that I keep going on about: Inflation helps debtors and hurts creditors, deflation does the reverse. And the wealthy are much more likely than […]
Finding Themselves On Third Base and Thinking They Hit a Triple
The White American Dream Game Just listening to the level of noise coming from some posters complaining about low income workers, how they caused their own predicament, and this is why they are unable to move upwards on the ladder of mobility. Low income and unskilled workers do not work hard enough, they did not […]
Tesla deal even worse than first thought
Via an email from Greg LeRoy of Good Jobs First, we learn that the Tesla deal, as enacted by the Nevada Legislature, is even worse than announced. Aside from the widely touted 6500 jobs only being 6000 jobs for which the state is paying for, it turns out that Tesla doesn’t even have to create […]
Is labor force participation dropping due to a falling labor share?
A comment on a previous post said that the unemployment rate is under-measuring the true unemployment rate due to people having withdrawn from the labor market. The low labor force participation rate would reflect this view. Is the 6.1% unemployment rate a reliable measure of un- and under-employment? One model for the supply & demand […]
How The Rich Rule US Democracy
Via Social Europe Journal, Dani Rodrik points to both a perennial question on economic self-interests and elections: Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University, have recently produced some stark findings for the United States that have dramatic implications for the functioning of democracy – in the US and elsewhere. … When […]