Can Demography Explain Portugal’s Growth Slump Before The Crash? The above still comes from a recent Financial Times video entitled “Portugal’s Brain Drain”, which I encourage everyone to watch. The issue being raised revolves around the current acceleration of emigration from countries on the EU periphery, largely towards the EU core. Typically the emigrants are […]
Well the word out of DC this morning is that the GOP will cave on holding Obamacare hostage at least to the debt ceiling in exchange for negotiations on long-term debt with Social Security explicitly on the table. So it is time to review some basics here. First we have Public Debt and Debt Subject […]
In her acceptance speech for Fed Chair, Janet Yellen said… (at the 1:30 point in this video from The Daily Conversation) “The mandate of the Federal Reserve is to serve all of the American people” And then it appears as though she almost choked on those words. She must sense the rage and power seething […]
This change is common knowledge for many and as noted happens in many forms (globalization), but the following is another way to frame changing ownership patterns and attitudes about who you might be trusting to make the rules: NEW CORPORATE TAX SHELTER: MERGER ABROAD American corporations increasingly are reducing their tax bill by buying […]
John Williams who is the president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco published a letter yesterday explaining unconventional monetary policies. First I want to appreciate the clarity and simplicity with which John Williams is able to communicate complex ideas. His voice is honest, transparent and credible. What did he […]
From the Los Angelos Times comes this article on Social Security Disability and reporting: Is it possible for a major news organization to produce a story about the Social Security disability program without interviewing a single disabled person or disability advocate? That’s the experiment “60 Minutes” conducted Sunday. The result was predictably ghastly. The news […]
The IS-LM model is built upon two markets, the goods market (IS) and the money market (LM). The alternative view in this post will incorporate the effective demand limit into the IS-LM model. Money Market First The money market is described by a plot of the interest rate (y-axis) and the quantity of money (x-axis). The […]
The Myth of the “Free Market” and How to Make the Economy Work for Us MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2013 by Robert Reich One of the most deceptive ideas continuously sounded by the Right (and its fathomless think tanks and media outlets) is that the “free market” is natural and inevitable, existing outside and beyond government. […]
Take out one outlier month, and the ‘stunning growth’ in part-time employment falls from 59% to 19% of jobs added (Mark J. Perry, Carpe Diem, The American Enterprise Institute) Many are still quoting the grossly inaccurate figure of 96% of new jobs in 2013 being part-time. But even the actual 59% derives substantially from a […]
James Rickards wrote the book Currency Wars a few years back. (source video) He is supported by the Charles Koch Institute. He says the US wanted China to appreciate their currency, so that the dollar would depreciate, because the fed wanted to import inflation in order to meet their nominal GDP targets. His view is […]