The Value of Life and the Metaphor of Choice Perhaps no topic generates such bewilderment between economists and the general public as the monetary valuation of human life, or the value of a statistical life (VSL) to use the term preferred by professional economists. Economists insist that longevity is a commodity bought and sold on […]
Weekly Indicators for July 2 – 6: long term forecast continues to deteriorate June data started out with another strong jobs report, but once again with weak wage growth. Motor vehicle sales and both the ISM manufacturing and nonmanufacturing indexes were very positive as well. May data included and increase in construction spending and factory […]
In Defense of the Francois-Baughman Analysis of the Trump Tariffs Dr. Joseph Francois and Laura M. Baughman are being criticized for writing: This policy brief examines the potential net impacts on U.S. jobs across all industries of the proposed steel and aluminum tariffs applied to targeted steel and aluminum imports from all countries. It does not […]
pgl responded to the post below… “Corporations… make profits appear in low-tax countries; but there’s very little real production or employment behind those profits…. Tax-haven countries… show… ridiculously high levels of profits relative to wages… because the profits aren’t being earned where they’re being reported…. Ireland….” Krugman is referring to transfer pricing manipulation. One would […]
June jobs report: another strong late cycle reading HEADLINES: +213,000 jobs added U3 unemployment rate up +0.2% from 3.8% to 4.0% U6 underemployment rate up +0.2% from 7.6% to 7.8% Here are the headlines on wages and the broader measures of underemployment: Wages and participation rates Not in Labor Force, but Want a Job Now: […]
Pruitt’s EPA Trashing Benefit-Cost Analysis Of Environmental Policy Scott Pruitt increasingly looks the worst of the worst out of the appalling cabinet of President Trump, quite aside from his race to become the single most corrupt cabinet member in the entire history ofthe US. The latter is trivial compared to his policy change after policy […]
Shock EU Court Decision Strikes Blow Against Investment Arbitration With all the dreary news we’ve seen this week, could you stand some good news? The battle against investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) got a huge boost in March when the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled in Slovak Republic v. Achmea B.V. (“Achmea”) that ISDS is contrary […]
Great new Tax Justice Network podcast on how “Bean Counters…Broke Capitalism” The June 28 Taxcast is out with a focus on the Big Four accounting firms. Richard Brooks is the author of Bean Counters: The triumph of the accountants and how they broke capitalism (order here in the UK and here in the US) which documents accountants’ involvement in some of […]
by Joseph Joyce The New Trade Wars The “global imbalances” of the early 2000s were the Chinese trade surpluses and the U.S. deficits. These received a great deal of attention, but the effects of the U.S. deficit on the domestic economy was not always acknowledged. Those who complained about the loss of manufacturing jobs in the […]
May personal spending returns to typical late cycle pattern The consumer continues to do okay. That is the message from personal income and spending as reported for May this morning. First of all, let’s compare the YoY% growth in real personal spending (blue) with real retail sales (red): For the last 50 years, during all […]