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

Waffle House strike highlights the harms of the Southern economic development model

by Chandra Childers Economic Policy Institute Working Economics Blog Some background on the author; Chandra Childers is a senior policy and economic analyst with the Economic Analysis and Research Network (EARN) at EPI. Her work is primarily focused on supporting EARN’s state and local policy research and advocacy network in the Southern United States. Childers is committed […]

From sufficiency to planned obsolescence … and back?

by Tom Walker Econospeak Book proposal: Marx’s Fetters and the Realm of Freedom: a remedial reading — part 2.6 From sufficiency to planned obsolescence… and back? In the Grundrisse, Karl Marx argued that capital’s response to the barrier to increasing production posed by satiated consumption took three paths: promoting greater consumption of existing products, expanding […]

Further on why the big increase in immigration has been distorting the signal from the ‘Sahm Rule’

 – by New Deal democrat AB: What does the Sahm rule signify? If the three-month moving average of the jobless rate rises by at least a half-percentage point from its low during the previous 12 months, then a recession has started. NDd; In my summation of Friday’s employment report, I wrote that “[t]here will probably […]

Washington Post Doesn’t Have Access to Data on US Energy Production?

by Dean Baker Center for Economic and Policy Research That’s what readers must conclude after reading this Washington Post’s piece on President Biden’s plans to increase corporate taxes and taxes on the rich. At one point, the piece reports the response to these plans from Rep. Steven Scalise (R-La), the second-ranking Republican in the House: “He tries […]

One more time: bifurcation in the jobs report, as Establishment Survey shows continued jobs growth, while Household Survey comes close to triggering the “Sahm Rule”

 – by New Deal democrat AB: July 3rd, NDd mentioned he would review the comparison between the Household and the Establishment Survey Reports today. He had initially look at the comparison July 3. In the past few months, my focus has been on whether jobs gains are most consistent with a “soft landing,” i.e., no further […]

The Revolutionary Class

by Tom Walker Econospeak Book proposal: Marx’s Fetters and the Realm of Freedom: a remedial reading — part 2.7 The revolutionary class “The working class is either revolutionary or it is nothing,” Marx wrote to German politician J.B. von Schweitzer and copied “word for word” in a letter to Engels. In The Manifesto of the Communist […]

ISM weighted mfg.+ non-mfg. indexes warrant hoisting a yellow caution flag for the economy

 – by New Deal democrat I’ll spare you the introductory graphs this month, but let me reiterate my opening comments from last month: I never used to pay much attention to the ISM non-manufacturing report. That is partly because it only has a 20 year history, and partly because it seems to be more coincident […]