It is common to see economists saying that once wages start to rise, inflation will rise too. Yet, I have been writing that inflation may not rise if wages rise. The reason is that capital income is consuming in historically tremendous amounts. And a rise in wages could mean a decline in profits, which would […]
No sooner had I finished my mini-series on evaluating proposed location subsidies then @varnergreg sends me this story about a new copper tubing manufacturing facility opening in one of the nation’s poorest counties, Wilcox County, Alabama. This is clearly the sort of place where I think we should consider using investment incentives, but the sheer […]
I chased prisoners in 71 at Camp Lejeune as a sergeant and stood duty NCO at the Barrel Club Leeward side Gtmo, Cuba 1970 as a Corporal. It was not much fun dealing with those being discharged or drunk. I think some have the right idea on how to handle hostile drunks. Enjoy. Hat Tip: […]
Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism showed concern over my last post on rising labor share… “In reality, it’s even worse than that. I hate criticizing writers whose work I generally like, but as a contrast to this talk, I suggest you look at a new post by Ed Lambert at Angry Bear. In it, a […]
Steve Randy Waldman has utterly pre-empted the need for this post, cut to the core of the thing, in the opening line of his latest (collect the whole series!): When economics tried to put itself on a scientific basis by recasting utility in strictly ordinal terms, it threatened to perfect itself to uselessness. But I’ll try […]
The Table above is extracted from Table VI.F9 in the 2013 Annual Report of Social Security. It is radically simplified because I want to make a very simple set of points, ones that have little or nothing to do with the proper policy approach to Social Security or to the adequacy of the model that […]
June’s issue of Atlantic Monthly brings to the reader a series of graphs as presented by Derek Thompson’s “How the Rich Shall Inherit the Earth”. The article gives a pictorial representation of what has taken place since the eighties in skewing income to a small, very small group of individuals numbering < than a hundred […]
When an update to Labor share of national income is released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it does not make headlines. Yet, it gives insight. The BLS released today their revised Productivity and Costs report for 1st quarter 2014. In the 1st quarter of 2014, the non-farm Business Sector Labor share index was revised […]
by Joseph Joyce The Challenges of Achieving Financial Stability The end of the dot.com bubble in 2000 led to a debate over whether central banks should take financial stability into account when formulating policy, in addition to the usual indicators of economic stability such as inflation and unemployment. The response from many central bankers was […]