Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Interesting Virginia Primary Results Just Moments Ago

Novice Tea-bagger Representative candidate Dave Brat just handed Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor a defeat in the Virginia GOP primary. A $200,000 campaign fund challenging a 6-digit campaign fund. Apparently, Cantor was not backwards, conservative enough for the 7th District Tea-baggers. “‘There needs to be a change,’ said Joe Mullins, who voted in Chesterfield […]

War is good for the economy?

Via Big Picture, Barry Ritholz points us to discussion on the role of ‘war’ in our economy: Preface: Many Americans – including influential economists and talking heads – still wrongly assume that war is good for the economy. For example, extremely influential economists like Paul Krugman and Martin Feldsteinpromote the myth that war is good […]

The Pernicious Prison of the Price Theory Paradigm

Steve Randy Waldman has utterly pre-empted the need for this post, cut to the core of the thing, in the opening line of his latest (collect the whole series!): When economics tried to put itself on a scientific basis by recasting utility in strictly ordinal terms, it threatened to perfect itself to uselessness.  But I’ll try […]

The Short Version–Piketty

June’s issue of Atlantic Monthly brings to the reader a series of graphs as presented by Derek Thompson’s “How the Rich Shall Inherit the Earth”. The article gives a pictorial representation of what has taken place since the eighties in skewing income to a small, very small group of individuals numbering < than a hundred […]

Quelle Surprise, Labor Productivity is Up while Labor Wages are Still Down!

BLS economist Shawn Sprague writes What Can Labor Productivity Tell Us About the U.S. Economy? Labor worked the exact same number of hours in 1998 as they did in 2013 or ~194 billion hours. While there was no growth in the number of hours worked, the Non-Institutional Civilian Population grew by 40 million people, and […]

AWESOME opinion today by Roberts in Bond v. United States!

I’ve written extensively here at AB about a two-time Supreme Court case called Bond v. United States, first three years ago when the case was heard the first time, then in the last few months as the case was heard there again.  My most recent post on it, from May 15, was called “The Supreme […]

Wealth Is Not Capital: The Brilliant Seth Ackerman Explains It All 4 U

I’m stunned by how good the new Jacobin piece by Seth Ackerman is: “Piketty’s Fair-Weather Friends.” It gives what I find to be the best understanding so far of the whole Piketty “think space.” It’s so good that I can’t encapsulate it, so I’ll just share some of the passages I’m most taken with, with my […]

Michigan Republican Senate Candidate Terri Lynn Land Declares Federal “War Generals” Incompetent. The Targeted Enemy Being Michigan.

[Michigan Republican Senate candidate Terri Lynn] Land, a Byron Center Republican, had defended presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s anti-bailout position two years ago and noted that GM had become known as “Government Motors.” She declined to revisit the topic Wednesday during a brief exchange with reporters, which she cut short following the forum. “I’ve always supported […]