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 […]
Shinzo Abe didn’t fool any of the people any of the time. Japan is now in a recession by the standard definition of two quarters of declining GDP in a row. The timing leaves little doubt that this recession was caused by the 3% increase in the consumption tax this April fools day. Japan’s GDP […]
I have recently wrote 2 posts on a model for interest rates and inflation based on the Fisher equation… Nominal rate = real rate + inflation Here is the model that I will overlay actual data to below… (link to previous post) The yellow star represents the Long-run natural target for normalized monetary policy at […]
Lifted from Robert Waldmann‘s Stochastic Thoughts. Dan here. NDD’s post on voter turnout for older voters being an economic question in general about interest rates and cola rates, Robert points to less “rational” economic behavior. Of course there is quixotic voting such as the lady in Kentucky who was for the KY health exchange and […]