by Stormy and Dan Drug wars in Juarez…and the cause—NAFTA, really. Mexico drug cartel in the Guardian: Mexico’s main crossing point to the US has always had a seedy border vibe, but two decades ago it was envisaged as a showcase for a new economy built on free trade, manufacturing and cheap labour. Factories drew […]
Financial Times/alphaville’s Cardiff Garcia uses Rebecca Wilder’s post Evaluating the “excess” in the US corporate financial balance. What to make of the excess savings (aka boatloads of cash) that remain on US corporate balance sheets? In trying to answer this question, economist Rebecca Wilder has used data from the Fed’s latest flow of funds report […]
by Bruce Webb There is a great deal of chatter these days about how Obama lost ‘Progressives’, what Robert Gibbs derisively called the ‘Professional Left’ or the ‘Left of the Left’, and as an example you could read this from Peter Daou How a handful of liberal bloggers are bringing down the Obama presidency and […]
by Dan Crawford Institutional Investor reminds us of a vital area not in the news, but drawing enough committed money to attract even hedge funds. Angry Bear has carried posts on the 1989 experiment with privatization of water utilities in Britain, the strange world of WTO rules regarding water supply, ownership, and provision of sewerage, […]
by: Daniel Becker This is a simple little exercise that frankly I wonder why no one with a pulpit (that would be you congress critters, executive office and MSM) has done it. It is for those who think simplistically. Thinking like: wealthy people create jobs with their extra money and not the non-wealthy people’s demand for […]
CASSE (Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy) carries this piece: Demand a Supply of Common Sense; Just Don’t Price Itby Brian Czech Ah, the confusion of economics students when they encounter the subject of supply and demand in introductory “micro.” They learn that prices are determined by supply and demand. Then they’re […]
by Dale Coberly HOW TO PAY FOR SOCIAL SECURITYBALANCE THE BUDGET CUT THE DEFICITand REDUCE THE NATIONAL DEBT Big Numbers and Mental Hygiene We have been treated recently to a great deal of hysteria about “the deficit” and the huge horrible Burden of Social Security, including the mysterious Trust Fund: is it real? or only […]
Let us first stipulate that houses themselves are unique entities, but similar enough that we can consider them comparable if not fungible. (In this, they are like any financial asset.) Let us further restrict them in acknowledging that there are significant transaction costs: one’s liquidity preference should not prefer housing to, say, cash-equivalents or marketable […]
by Linda Bealecrossposted with Ataxingmatter Inequality as a critical cause of the financial crisis? As readers know, Ataxingmatter is premised on a concept that I have called “democratic egalitarianism.” that This is the idea that sustainable democracy requires forces that push economic and other resources towards a more equal distribution rather than permitting resources to […]
by Dan Crawford I haven’t the time to check it out, but here is a note and link to a Senate bill on offshoring: The Senate is scheduled to vote TODAY on the Creating American Jobs and Ending Offshoring Act (S. 3816) to set a time limit for debate and cut off a filibuster. The […]