by Steve Roth The Eighth Way to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist Asymptosis February 22nd, 2019 The teams at Rethinking Economics and Doughnut Economics have launched a contest for entries, asking “What’s the 8th Way to Think Like a 21st Century Economist?” It builds on Kate Raworth’s seven ways, here. Here’s my entry: 8. Widespread prosperity both […]
Neoliberalism as Structure and Ideology in Higher Education A few weeks ago I speculated on the structural aspect of neoliberalism at an economy-wide level, the way its characteristic framing of economic decision-making may have emerged from changes in the role of finance in business and the composition of high-end portfolios. My purpose was to push back against […]
by New Deal democrat Housing may bottom this spring Despite yesterday’s poor existing home sales report, which was the worst in over three years, the bottom in housing may be near. This post is up at Seeking Alpha. As always, reading the post should be helpful to you, and renumerates me just a bit for my […]
100 years of industrial production This is a post that can literally be written only once in 100 years! Because as of last Friday, it has been exactly 100 years since the first publication of industrial production by the Fed in January 1919. So this is a good time to take a sweeping historical look […]
Wages continued to improve through January One item I didn’t get around to in the last couple of weeks is how wages performed as of January’s jobs report. And the basic answer is: pretty good! The first graph below shows real, inflation adjusted average wage gains for non-managerial workers measured YoY: As of January they […]
“When we first came to Washington in 1933,” FDR Labor Secretary Francis Perkins wrote in her memoir, The Roosevelt I Knew, “the Black bill was already before the Congress. Introduced by Senator Hugo L. Black, it had received support from many parts of the country and from many representatives and senators.” The Black Bill was […]
It’s Presidents Day, and we’re still basically flying blind on the eoncomy Not only are the markets closed today for President’s Day, but this entire week is about the emptiest I can ever recall for economic data. Literally the only data of note is going to be released on Thursday, and except for weekly jobless […]
More signs of a slowdown: initial claims and real retail sales We got two negative data points. One is cause for concern; the other – not quite yet. Let me start with the “not yet” first. Initial jobless claims rose 4,000 to 239,000. That means that the 4 week moving average rose to 231,750: This […]
Amazon defeated in New York UPDATED In the biggest ever defeat for a subsidized project in history, Amazon announcedFebruary 14th that it was canceling its planned half of HQ2 for New York City, which was to receive subsidies worth at least $3.133 billion. After facing months of public opposition, the company provided a Valentine’s Day present in […]
Who Is Really A Socialist? Here are some varieties of “socialism:” command socialism, market socialism, socialist market economy, social democracy, democratic socialism, right wing socialism, utopian socialism, corporate socialism, just plain vanilla socialism. Here are some people who have claimed to be socialist, some of them selecting one or another of these types, but some […]