I’m no expert on South Africa, but I did some reading and pieced together a brief history of the country’s last 50,000 to 150,000 years. It begins with the San. Depending on who you ask and what evidence they are looking at, the San people have been in Southern Africa for somewhere between 50,000 to […]

A suggestion from Michael Halasy: The Randian Congressman Paul Ryan has turned off ALL of his public telephones & fax machines in response to protests in favor of the Affordable Care Act, Planned Parenthood, Medicare, etc. He is also NOT accepting signed petitions and is TURNING-AWAY voters who deliver the petitions. So, let’s see what […]

I’ve been quite troubled lately by voices I’ve been hearing from my compatriots on the Left discussing the Job Guarantee — especially in relation to an alternative, Universal Basic Income. A new Jacobin article by Mark Paul, William Darity Jr., and Darrick Hamilton displays several of the aspects that make me uncomfortable. Get the Math Right. Right off the bat, […]

At the beginning of 2007, net worth of households and non-profit organizations exceeded its 1947-1996 historical average multiple, relative to GDP, by some $16 trillion. It took 24 months to wipe out eighty percent, or $13 trillion, of that colossal but ephemeral slush fund.

Last week Timothy  Taylor at Convertible Economist did a very good post on  gross vs net capital spending. Declining US Investment, Gross and Net He showed that in recent years the more rapid growth of  high  tech  spending has had an unanticipated impact.  The new high tech equipment has a much shorter life span that […]

CPAC had a gathering of Republican Governors today. As Jennifer Hayden (@Scout_Finch) on Twitter noted, the Brownback/Walker/etc. panel was called “How to ruin your state’s economy with one easy tax cut.” So naturally my thoughts shifted to the one way blowing up your state’s economy could be ameliorated: if some unearned windfall occurred. Could a […]

In the last few months I have gotten accused of racism a few times at this blog. I don’t think I am misrepresenting my accusers by stating that their claim is based primarily because of my views on a) immigration and b) the differences between the economic performance of different countries. The two issues actually […]

For nearly a half a century, from 1947 to 1996, real GDP and real Net Worth of Households and Non-profit Organizations (in 2009 dollars) both increased at a compound annual rate of a bit over 3.5%. GDP growth, in fact, was just a smidgen faster — 0.016% — than  growth of Net Household Worth. From […]

by New Deal democrat Wages and household income vs. housing: which leads which? Sometimes I look into a relationship that doesn’t quite pan out, but it’s still useful to flesh out the process. That’s the story of real wage growth vs. housing. In the last few months I ‘ve pointed out that real wage growth […]