Is the current aggressive monetary policy effective? Do the risks outweigh the benefits? Mark Thoma wrote on August 31st… “It’s just that some members of the Fed do not believe the Fed has much influence over the economy beyond stabilizing the financial system. Once that is done, the Fed’s powers are very limited (when at […]
What caused the recession of 1960? Here is an answer given at timerime.com. “The recession of 1960-1961 was mainly due to the high inflation, high unemployment rates, and a bad gross national product rating. This recession lasted for 10 months and resulted in the second longest economic expansion in U.S. history. During Kennedy’s 1960 presidential […]
How much of their income do labor and capital use for consumption of finished goods and services? Now, if labor and capital do not spend their money on consumption, they either save it or pay taxes. In the case of labor, whose rate of consumption is very high, they have less and less income available […]
Each year the Michigan League for Public Policy issues a Labor Day report on the status of Labor with in the state. This year the outcome for Michigan Labor is no better than in previous years. 90% of Michigan Labor finds themselves making less and a further deterioration in earning power. The upper 10% of […]
In honor of LABOR DAY… Yesterday, I posted a graph showing the percentage of capital income that is used for consumption. It is a new graph being developed. Since yesterday, I have gone back and changed just one number that determines the consumption rate of capital income. I replaced the number for “net government saving”, […]
Theoretically, capital income, especially in the form of retained earnings by corporations and some capital gains would be used for saving and investment in the means of production, while labor income is used for consumption of finished goods and services from production. However, a portion of capital income is used for consumption, when the incentives […]
Scott Sumner nods with approbation toward this Ychuan Wang post at Noahpinion. For which hat tip I must thank him because Wang so clearly explicates what he calls the “canonical” understanding, and illustrates so perfectly the wackiness and incoherence of of the Walrasian view: Prices don’t always adjust instantly, so we can have excess supplies […]
Unlearning Econ: The story goes like this: an Israeli day care centre found that parents were picking up their children too late, so they introduced a small charge of $3 to try and disincentivise lateness. However, instead of discouraging this behaviour, the payment served to legitimise it and buy the parents piece of mind. The […]
Has the Shale Bubble Already Burst? (Igor Alexeev, Naked Capitalism cross posted from Oil Price) “The average depletion rate of wells in the Bakken Formation (the largest tight oil play in the US) is reported to be 69 percent in the first year and 94 percent over the first five years (37 percent and 50 […]