by Rebecca Wilder The trend in US corporate profits is what you think it is In my research for an article about the cross section of national income, I ran across this piece in Forbes by Tim Worstall. In this article, he uses proprietary Bloomberg and WSJ data for 2012 corporate offshore cash holdings to assess […]
The trend in US corporate profits is what you think it is
Productivity is Demand Constrained
I was watching a video from the World Economic Forum 2013 in Davos, Switzerland. The video is a panel discussion on the subject, “No growth, easy money, the new normal”. The World Economic Forum 2013 took place in January 2013. It is basically a discussion of monetary policy in dealing with the crisis. In the […]
Not Spending is Not Investment
I see this logical error so constantly, almost every day, that I feel the need to reiterate. Personal saving, virtuous and useful as it is for individuals, does not increase investment. This is what I call the “lump of money” fallacy (a.k.a. the loanable funds model). Ask yourself: If you transfer $10K from your bank […]
What is the story of wages and growth?
Lifted from comments: Run 75411 reacts to Daniel Alpert at Economonitor. : It appears much of the job growth has been in low wage opportunity which forces people to do with less and detracts from demand led economic growth. The economic bump in taking a lower wage paying job is just not that great; average Unemployment […]
Understanding Effective Demand with Edward Lambert
A few people have asked me to provide a quick introduction to Edward Lambert’s recent work on Effective Demand, which work I’ve mentioned a few times. That’s ironic, because I made those mentions in hopes that more-accomplished others would do the same for me. That help hasn’t been forthcoming, because quite a bit of work […]
Robert Shiller: Raise taxes on rich if inequality gets worse
Here is a 12 minute video on youtube of an interview from Davos, Switzerland, with Robert Shiller from Yale University. He says in the video that taxes should be raised on the rich if inequality gets worse. He seems content with the current level of inequality. He says that economics is not an exact science. […]
Offshoring profits with captive reinsurance
by Linda Beale Offshoring profits with captive reinsurance One of the ways that corporations manage to cut their federal income tax bills way, way below the statutory rate is by setting up reinsurance affiliates offshore. While some of these reinsurance affiliates may actually function as full-service reinsurance companies to many different customers, those truly taking […]
Examining the Entrails of the U.S. Employment Situation –
Daniel Alpert at Nouriel Roubini’s Economonitors offers a through, data supported (but in real English as well), description of what is happening in our economy, and why some things that might look puzzling are not so hard to see with some careful reading: I have a story to tell you about the U.S. employment picture. A […]
Round and around the revolving door does spin…
Lifted from comments from open thread July 23 by reader Jack Round and around the revolving door does spin. Those who take the ride are guaranteed to win, in the game of securities enforcement law. In yet another move between public and private practice John Khuzami moves from the SEC to “….a job that pays […]
