I keep telling people that the German euro is undervalued, but some folks seem not to believe me. (See the comments section from this post last year for an example.) But this is a really big deal. The dominant narrative about the eurozone crisis is that fiscally irresponsible countries like Greece were bringing the once-proud […]
Lifted from comments from this post, Angry Bear Spencer England further explains oil and markets: Oil production is an unusual business in that virtually all of the cost of getting crude to the refiner is fixed costs while variable cost or current spending is insignificant. Economic theory, at least what you will learn if you […]
Bloomberg news points to continued trends in oil production and prices. Yves Smith also comments here. …Conventional oil producers in OPEC can no longer dictate prices, United Arab Emirates Energy Minister Suhail Al-Mazrouei said in an interview on Nov. 26. Newcomers to the market who have the highest costs and created the glut should […]
Dan here…this piece is originally published at Oxford University Press by Angry Bear Edward Lambert. by Edward Lambert Thanksgiving and the economics of sharing For this American, my favorite holiday has always been Thanksgiving. Why? I have an image in my mind of Native Americans and colonists meeting and sharing food together; they share knowledge […]
Well, it is about time for a higher authority to push strongly for higher wages. The Wall Street Journal has an article about the Bank of Japan’s Governor, Haruhiko Kuroda. Basically, companies need to use their increased profits and reserves to raise labor’s pay. If companies do not raise labor’s pay significantly, Abenomics will fail.
– by New Deal democrat (from Bonddad blog) Failure to deflate: flat consumer prices only slightly help real wages, sales Usually changes in the inflation rate are all about the price of gasoline. Not in October. Although gas prices fell -6.4% (compared with a decline of -5.0% a year ago), unlike one year ago […]
Economics is full of ideas for fiscal & monetary policies. But these policies are Top-down approaches. They work through investment and the financial system. Yes, China lowers its benchmark rate from 6.0% to 5.6%, but China is supporting a failing policy of over-investment. Debt rises… and non-performing loans are increasing. Yes, Draghi wants to do […]
Tim Worstall at Forbes takes issue with my last post, claiming that we actually don’t know that U.S. state and local governments give more in location incentives than EU Member States do. He then says that while it is true that EU states give less in cash grants and other kinds of subsidies defined as […]
Lifted from Robert Waldmann‘s StochasticThoughts In which I compare Rand Paul, Jay Ackroyd, and David Dayan Jay Ackroyd notes DDay’s excellent policy proposals. I comment That is indeed an excellent list. I especially like point 3 (I think it is useful to ask people how much money Medicare Advantage saved the government if they object). […]
by Joseph Joyce (re-posted from Capital Ebbs and Flows) Dealing with the Fallout from U.S. Policies The divergence of monetary policies in the advanced economies continues to roil financial markets. The Federal Reserve has reacted to better labor market conditions by ending its quantitative easing policy. The Bank of Japan, on the other hand, will […]