For months now, hard-core libertarians have been crusading against covid lockdowns in uncompromising terms. This is a topic that merits careful study, but let’s take a brief look at some of their arguments, focusing on Australia. The libertarian case against lockdowns can be summarized as follows: Benefits: The benefits of lockdowns are low, because 1) […]
by New Deal democrat Lending supply and demand both increased in Q2 The June JOLTS report will be posted at 10 am eastern time (Dan here…Aug. 9) While we are waiting for that, here is a link to my update on the Senior Loan Officer Survey, which is a long leading indicator, which was posted at […]
June Job Openings at Record High after May Record Revised Higher; Commenter RJS from MarketWatch 666; Record Low Layoffs; Hiring, Quitting, Retiring All Much Higher The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report for June from the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that seasonally adjusted job openings rose by 590,000, from 9,483,000 in May to 10,073,000 […]
by David Zetland Review: Shop Class as Soulcraft I can’t remember who recommended this 2009 book (subtitle an inquiry into the value of work) by Matthew B. Crawford, but I have been recommending to many people — whether they have rough or soft hands. The hook: Crawford got a PhD in political philosophy (U Chicago). After […]
Initial jobless claims continue in range, while continuing claims sharply decline Initial jobless claims declined another 14,000 this week to 385,000, still 17,000 above their best pandemic levels of 368,000 set on June 26 and July 10. The 4 week average of claims declined by 250 to 394,000, also 9,500 above its pandemic low set […]
Socially Ambivalent Labour Time VIII: Capital, volume one, chapters 6, 7 & 8 Chapter six, the buying and selling of labour power, contains neither “socially necessary labour time” nor “labour time socially necessary.” Instead it has a few synonyms: Suppose that in this mass of commodities requisite for the average day there are embodied 6 hours […]
July jobs report: more like this, please While the NBER has declared that the recession ended in April 2020, and income, sales, and GDP have all fully recovered, two of the series that the NBER uses have yet to have made a full recovery: Industrial production, still down -1.2% compared with February 2020, and employment, […]
by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for August 2 – 6 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Although the Delta wave is raging, nothing is impacting behavior. Neither producers nor consumers appear to have altered their behavior in any significant way at all because of the Delta. As usual, clicking […]
There is another world and economy out there which we do not see or hear much from other than when we talk politics and then we wonder why views may be different than ours. Michael Smith has been adding an agricultural dimension to the Bear which I think we need to understand. Years back, I […]
The absolute general law of capitalist accumulation is what “our pamphleteer” overlooked.. Our pamphleteer overlooks two things: The greater the social wealth, the functioning capital, the extent and energy of its growth, and, therefore, also the absolute mass of the proletariat and the productiveness of its labour, the greater is the industrial reserve army. The […]