Shinobu Hashmoto just died at age 100. His original screenplay for the greatest movie ever made in Japan was initially written while he was recovering in a Japanese hospital for war veterans.with him having tuberculosis. It is famous for showing how different observers of reality may have different views of that reality. The film’s director […]
Economic Policy Institute answers two laymen questions on wage stagnation: Why is wage growth so slow? It’s not because low-wage jobs are being added disproportionately: One explanation worth looking into is whether today’s low wage growth is due to a composition effect—i.e. low-wage jobs being added faster than middle- and/or high-wage jobs and, as a […]
The US is not in an economic Boom: midyear udpate At the beginning of this year I asked: Is the US economy going to enter a Boom in 2018? To recap, there is no standard definition of a Boom. But in my lifetime there have been two occasions when the “good times” feeling was palpable, […]
The Most Important Issue At Helsinki No, folks, it was not the much ballyhooed issue of Russian election interference in 2016, which got so much attention because of Trump’s bungled and false statements at the press conference. Oh yes, for those of us who are convinced he is a bought out stooge of Putin, this […]
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US layoff rate at all time lows I don’t write about new jobless claims much anymore, mainly because it has been boringly good for a few years (outside of hurricane disruptions!). But there are times like this week when I am particularly thankful that I am concentrating on the one thing – the economy – […]
Trump Tariffs Hit Largest US Aluminum Company, ALCOA In the history of antitrust law, one of the most important rulings by the US Supreme Court came in 1945, when the Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA), long based in Pittsburgh with heavy Mellon family ownership, was ordered broken up for being a monopoly, following a ruling […]
A projection was made by Fair Vote Org as to what will happen in the 2018 Congressional Elections based upon a series of variables such as whether a candidate is an incumbent, the geographical location or rural versus city, the underlying partisan lean of a district etc. If we apply those variables to this election; […]