Wikileaks reveals one chapter of 29 chapters, 5 on trade. Via wikipedia Fast_track (trade) means… Crooks and Liars points to key issues: The longest section of the Chapter – ’Enforcement’ – is devoted to detailing new policing measures, with far-reaching implications for individual rights, civil liberties, publishers, internet service providers and internet privacy, as well […]
From Thomas Dewar, Public Citizen News release: Quote: “… Also fueling congressional opposition to Fast Track is the abysmal outcome of the Obama administration’s only major trade pact to date, the U.S.-Korea FTA, which is the template for the TPP. In contrast to Obama’s promises that the Korea deal would boost exports, in the agreement’s […]
I was up late last night tinkering in the “equation workshop” to calculate the center of the business cycle (potential GDP). The equation is opening up my eyes to some new insights. The center of the business cycle is an important concept. It is the core foundation of the real GDP business cycle. Ultimately the […]
Columbia U. Conference Shows Incentives Pervasive but Controls Work Day one of the Columbia International Investment Conference in New York has concluded, and the takeaways are very clear. The topic is investment incentives, prompted by Louise Story’s “United States of Subsides” series last December. Story moderated panel 1, which covered the pervasiveness of subsidies. How […]
Ah now Kevin Drum wrote about something I know something about. He notes a post by John Cochrane and said he was licking his lips waiting for the Delong/Krugman demolition which, however disappointed him.
Many economists say we still have a big output gap and that we will eventually return to the potential GDP trend from before the crisis. It is not a wise view. Let me reveal a mystery to explain. The following graph shows annual % growth for real GDP and potential GDP (center of business cycle). […]
I posted yesterday about potential GDP being the center of the business cycle and how labor share reflects potential GDP. I want to go deeper into this using data. P. Krugman wrote yesterday… “We don’t know how much capacity the economy has, but we do have strong reason to suspect that running the economy below […]
There are a couple of easy ways to check out current Federal Public Debt to the dollar or even the penny. One you could check out the National Debt Clock which also is conveniently mirrored (in simplified form) in Times Square. In the top left you will find the number for ‘US National Debt’ at […]
For the moment, let’s go with old saw that “economics is the study of scarcity.” (Though I disagree with it; the proper study of economics is human reaction functions.) What’s scarce these days? Certainly not supply. In an 80%-service economy suffering high unemployment and a unprecedentedly low labor/population ratio, higher demand for massages is not […]
The mystery revealed in this post is that potential GDP and labor share reflect each other. One thing people must realize is that potential GDP describes the center of the business cycle. (See video below for visual explanations.) It seems most people think potential means the top end of the business cycle, but they would […]