What Is the Shape Of This Cycle As A Letter: V, L, W, J, U, Or Maybe A Lazy J or Wiggly W? For some time now it has become commonplace for people to describe business cycles by how they resemble one letter or another, although obviously this amounts to a lot of hand waving. […]
We desperately need to increase our capacity to test for COVID-19, to trace contacts, and to produce masks and other forms of personal protective equipment. This will allow us to keep the virus under control and to cautiously re-start economic activity as we await development of a vaccine. Unfortunately, President Trump has made it clear […]
RIP John Horton Conway I am late to issue this RIP as John Horton Conway died on April 11, 2020, having been born in England, Dec. 26, 1937. He died of coovid-19. I was aware of his death when it happened, but have since become aware of things he did that I did not know […]
April jobs report: disastrous, but not as cataclysmic as feared; lower paid part time workers take the biggest hit HEADLINES: -20.5 million jobs lost. Between March and April this is a loss of 14.0% of all jobs since February. U3 unemployment rate up 10.3% from 4.4% to 14.7% U6 underemployment rate rose 14.1% from […]
A Very Grey Swan Keynes and Knight famously simultaneously in 1921 identified the concept of fundamental uncertainty as a situation not understandable by using a probability distribution, an idea popularized by Nassim Taleb just as the 2008 crash happened as a “black swan.” Taleb defined white swans as situations describable by Gaussian normal distributions. For […]
by Ken Melvin Are capitalism and democracy compatible? Both Capitalism and Democracy are complicated, complex concepts with varying interpretations. Beginning with a working definition of democracy: Democracy — A government formed of representatives popularly elected by the enfranchised citizenry of the governed entity. Webster’s : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people […]
Potential Pricing for Remdesivir The FDA has approved Remdesivir for emergency use and Gilead Science will denote its current 1.5 million vials, which could potentially treat 300 thousand patients as it takes 5 to 10 treatments per patient. The WHO wants more Remdesivir: The World Health Organization said Monday that it will speak with the U.S. government […]
by Joseph Joyce Is There a Future for FDI? Among the economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic will be a drop in foreign direct investment activity. The latest issue of the OECD’s FDI In Figures forecasts a decline of more than 30% in 2020 in FDI flows, even under an optimistic scenario of a recovery in the […]
A good Anne Appelbaum read here at The Atlantic to which I subscribe to in print and via computer. The print-version makes for a brief case stuffer when I am flying somewhere far away. The Youtube depicts China as a Lego terra-cotta warrior with a low masculine voice and the United States as a Lego […]
(Dan here…Great comments for this post at Econospeak) Planet of the Humans: A De-Growth Manifesto Planet of the Humans, directed by Jeff Gibbs but featuring Michael Moore as its “presenter”, has been viewed by almost five and a half million people since it popped up on YouTube last month. In case you haven’t heard, it’s […]