Socially Ambivalent Labour Time IV: TSV part 2, chapters 8, 9, 16, and 17 Nothing notable in these chapters. Chapter 8: Poor quality land requires more labour time than socially necessary (which is to say the average labour time required to produce a given output). Chapter 9: Socially necessary labour time is permanently established in […]
Topical thread Unemployment is socially necessary.
Steve Hutkins from Save The Post Office, “Why the USPS proposal to reduce service standards will cause “undue discrimination” The Postal Service’s plan to reduce service standards is now being reviewed by the Postal Regulatory Commission for an Advisory Opinion. On Monday, June 21, the Postal Service and several of the intervenors in the case […]
US crude supplies falling at a record pace, down 17.4% YoY; gasoline output at a 22 month high; record gasoline demand The Latest US Oil Supply and Disposition Data from the EIA, RJS, Marketwatch 666 US oil data from the US Energy Information Administration for the week ending July 2nd showed that even after a sizeble […]
During the first Trump impeachment, and the second, House Republicans strongly opposed subpoenaing any witness who might tell the world some of the more egregious things that Trump had done and said as President. During the Senate trials, Mitch McConnell used his position to ensure that no witnesses were called, no incriminating evidence was presented, […]
Scenes from last week’s June employment report With no significant economic data today, let’s take a look at some of the more salient numbers from the June employment report released one week ago. Starting with the headline employment numbers, both the Establishment Survey and the Household Survey, while diverging in any given month, are in […]
Trend in new jobless claims flattens: the virus remains in control in the unvaccinated States New jobless claims are the most important weekly economic datapoint with regard to the effects of vaccination progress. Four weeks ago I wrote, “I think we are going to see two tracks going forward from here, as near-normalcy does return to […]
Socially Ambivalent Labour Time III: Theories of Surplus Value, chapter 7 and addenda to part 1 In an earlier post, I mentioned that in chapter seven of TSV Marx explicitly excluded William Godwin from his historical review of theories of surplus value: In accordance with the plan of my work socialist and communist writers are entirely excluded […]
May JOLTS report continues to show a jobs market out of equilibrium This morning’s JOLTS report for May continued all of the trends we saw in April – a huge amount of unfilled job openings, a comparatively weak level of actual hiring, an enhanced number of people quitting their jobs, and record low layoffs and […]
Coronavirus dashboard for July 6: bad news and *relatively* “good” news about the Delta Wave In the near future, there appears to be bad news and *relatively* “good” news for the US. The bad news is that the “delta wave” is spreading, and we should expect a real outbreak on the order of last summer’s […]