An economics, investment, trading and policy blog with a focus on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). We seek the truth, avoid the mainstream and are virulently anti-neoliberalism.
I usually use Wednesday to write less here. But because sometimes a data release is on Wednesday, Thursday then becomes my lighter day. And I also have to travel a lot today. But there is a relatively important issue to address. I have been receiving a lot of E-mails over the last several months that question me about my position on government restrictions with respect to the Covid pandemic. Apparently, it has seeped into the debate that the mainstream Left have been silent while governments around the world have imposed draconian social control on their citizens, which have been targeted against the workers. The questions all seems to suggest that I have been silent on that issue, which is indicative that I have adopted the ‘woke’ Left position. I beg to differ....
Today (December 1, 2021), the Australian Bureau of Statistics released the latest – Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product, September 2021 – which shows that the Australian economy contracted 1.9 per cent in the September-quarter. The annual growth rate of 3.9 per cent is relatively meaningless given the base was severely affected by the lockdowns last year. The decline in economic activity was driven by private demand, which contracted by 2.4 percentage points – mostly due to a decline in household final consumption expenditure. Public spending contributed 0.7 points to the GDP figure thus attenuating, to some extent, the fall in private demand. The increase in spending on health by both Federal and State governments was not large enough to avoid the contraction though. Real net national disposable income fell by 3.8 per cent, but rose by 7.8 per cent over the year. GDP per capita fell by 2 per cent in the September-quarter. There was a massive boost in the household saving ratio (from 11.8 per cent to 19.8 per cent) as a result of the tight lockdowns in Victoria and NSW during this period as a result of the renewed fiscal support. We will have to see how the rebound is next quarter now that the restrictions have been significantly eased. The most worrying thing about the data today is that the wage share in national income slumped further while the profit share in a smaller pie rose. Something needs to be done about that....
Mike covers today’s Fed moron’s policy shift to “non transitory!” from Powell on the EXACT DAY it became transitory… could not have timed it WORSE!…. funny…
Beijing leadership hopes data trading will propel the Fourth Industrial Revolution…
The Exchange was a part of China’s “fintech infrastructure” that would focus on the cultivation of a data transactions market to unleash the value of data as a factor of production, said Beijing Deputy Mayor Yin Yong.
The exchange would build an innovative transaction ecosystem by bringing together multiple parties including data source providers, algorithm participants, site participants, technical support parties and data transaction service parties to establish the Beijing International Data Transaction Alliance, Yin said....
Interesting article. This is a second try. The first faltered owning to the difficulty of new product recognition and organizational issues.
Craig Murray, the former British diplomat, was sentenced to 8 months in prison for contempt of court during the 2020 trial of former Scottish first minister Alex Salmond.
Counterpunch Craig Murray Is a Free Man Joe Lauria https://consortiumnews.com/2021/11/30/craig-murray-is-a-free-man/
These unsubstantiated releases claiming Malone is going to somehow now clean house at CNN are complete bullshit by DISCA bagholders…
When John Malone speaks people listen.Why?Well he owns a huge chunk of your company's shares&when he makes a suggestion you better listen to him or be out. CNN's days in the left lane may be slowing down&or be @ a end.Hint to DJT:buy same # of Twitter & FB shares https://t.co/XHWZ0ZNIxs
Yesterday (November 29, 2021), the Australian Bureau of Statistics released the latest – Business Indicators – for the September-quarter 2021. This dataset provides quarterly estimates of private sector sales, wages, profits and inventories. It provides a means of viewing exactly what has gone wrong with the Australian economy over the last two decades as successive governments have failed to prioritise general well-being, and, have instead, acted as agents of capital. There is a massive imbalance in the capacity of workers and profit-recipients to access national income that is produced by the workers. Profits have been booming while wages growth has been low for a long time now. And if you thought the booming profits would be siphoned into productive investment to lift productivity and create the non-inflationary space for real wage increases, then you would be wrong. The massive lift in profits has gone into unjustifiable increases in executive pay, property booms and financial market speculation. None of the things that help lift national prosperity and well-being....
Russian and Eurasian Politics Putin’s Plans for Ukraine Gordon M. Hahn | Expert Analyst at Corr Analytics, http://www.canalyt.com and a Senior Researcher at the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), Akribis Group
Andrei Martyanov, expert on Russian military and naval issues. Martyanov was born in Baku, USSR in 1963. He graduated from the Kirov Naval Red Banner Academy and served as an officer on the ships and staff position of Soviet Coast Guard through 1990. He took part in the events in the Caucasus which led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. In mid-1990s he moved to the United States where he currently works as Laboratory Director in a commercial aerospace group. He is a frequent blogger on the US Naval Institute Blog. He is author of Losing Military Supremacy, The (Real) Revolution in Military Affairs, and Disintegration: Indicators of the Coming American Collapse — Clarity Press
Politics getting in the way of economics. Russia holds the cards.
The continent is bracing itself for a difficult winter amid supply shortages and soaring prices. Industry leaders have warned of potential blackouts while skyrocketing wholesale costs are already being felt in the UK market – with over 20 firms ceasing trading since September….
The energy crunch was the most significant factor behind the rise in the cost of living in Germany. Destatis estimated that energy prices were up more than 22% in November, compared to the same month last year....
I have made some progress on my agent-based modelling project (in between CFL playoff games). It is now possible to interact with the simulation, making this the minimum viable space trading game. My objective was to get the economy running in a somewhat sensible fashion, so that it is possible to examine how any particular agent reacts to a coherent economy state, and thus I am free to refine behaviour....
Australia has a dire housing crisis, particularly in the low-income or social housing end. Since the 1990s, successive federal governments, who fund the social housing, have abdicated from their responsibilities citing a lack of funds and the need to run fiscal surpluses in order to save money for the future. While it has been starving the social housing sector, it has been investing billions of dollars in its Future Fund, ostensibly to cover future liabilities. So instead of spending funds on hospitals, education, housing and other important infrastructure needs, the government has been spending on speculative financial assets in global markets, some of which have been scandalous (see below). The whole narrative has been based on the falsehood that the government is like a household and has to save to expand its future spending possibilities. That logic has killed off many valuable initiatives, including maintaining adequate social housing stocks such that now low income Australians are increasingly becoming poor or homeless due to the high cost of private-provided housing at market rents. Today, a new proposal was launched by a think tank advocated that the Australian government should borrow to build the Future Fund so it can deliver speculative returns to help fund the dramatic shortfall in social housing. That is, they are using the same logic (the government is financially constrained) to solve a problem the logic created. It would be hard to make this stuff up.…
Lauren Melodia and I had an op-ed in the Nov. 21 Washington Post, challenging the idea that today’s inflation means that the stimulus measures of the past year and half were too large. I’m posting it here as well….
Why conventional macro based on Walrasian general equilibrium— which is all of it since it assumes rationality and general equilibrium — reduces to nonsense, as Keynes noted long ago. It's way past time to move on.
Scott Fullwiler and Senior Scholar L. Randall Wray review the roles of the Federal Reserve and the Treasury in the context of quantitative easing, and find that the financial crisis has highlighted the limited oversight of Congress and the limited transparency of the Fed. And since a Fed promise is ultimately a Treasury promise that carries the full faith and credit of the US government, the question is whether the Fed should be able to commit the public purse in times of national crisis.
Scott T. Fullwiler | Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Missouri - Kansas City, and L. Randall Wray | Professor of Economics, Bard College
The British Labour Party leader (for now) Keir Starmer gave a – Keynote Speech – to the Annual Conference of the Confederation of British Industry in Birmingham on November 22, 2021. If you read it or heard it you will know that his leadership marks the return of British Labour as class traitors. He started by saying the “Labour is back in business”, which should have been ‘Labour is the agent of business’ He played up the line that Britain’s future depends on the business sector profits growing stronger than they are now and that everyone benefits when profits are high and growing. Even at the most elementary level that statement defies the evidence. But for a Labour leader to make it spells trouble for the Party. So what else is new....
The Siloviki to Russiagate’s Rescue – Russian & Eurasian Politics Gordon M. Hahn | Expert Analyst at Corr Analytics, http://www.canalyt.com and a Senior Researcher at the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), Akribis Group https://gordonhahn.com/2021/11/24/the-siloviki-to-russiagates-rescue/
Military Times (not yet an alliance but getting closer under continuing pressure) Russia, China sign roadmap for closer military cooperation Vladimir Isachenkov, The Associated Press https://www.militarytimes.com/flashpoints/2021/11/24/russia-china-sign-roadmap-for-closer-military-cooperation/
Free capital flow increases inequality. No surprise. That is what is supposed to happen with capital accumulation under capital, where capital is privileged over labor (people) and land (the environment).
The Unassuming Economist Dani Rodrik’s Primer on Trade and Inequality Prakash Loungani | Assistant Director in the IMF's Independent Evaluation Office, Adjunct Professor at Johns Hopkins University (Carey School of Business), a Senior Fellow at Policy Center for the New South (a global think tank based in Rabat, Morocco) and a member of the advisory board of JustJobs Network based in New Delhi
Some comments on David Graeber and David Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity. This was Devid Graeber's last book. He since passed away.
Think "economics profession" when reading it. It is a good demonstration of why the historical method is superior to the naturalistic one in social subjects.
The Philosopher's Stone GRABER AND WENGROW YET AGAIN Robert Paul Wolff | Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts Amherst
When Apple began asking iPhone users whether they wanted to opt out of data tracking, 84% said yes – dealing a major blow to platforms whose business models depend on the collection and sale of user data. This is an ominous sign for Chinese tech companies, which now face the prospect of much tougher data regulations....
China is passing legislation requiring opt-in rather than opt-out. This seriously affects the business model of Internet companies that collect user information and use it commercially. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Users pay with their information. The opt-in rate is far lower than the opt-out.
It’s Wednesday and only a few items today. It seems that the mainstream economists are emerging again and making all sorts of claims that fiscal policy has to target lower deficits and monetary policy needs to tighten (interest rates rise) to stop our governments going broke and inflation going wild. It really is like a tired broken record, isn’t it. They have sort of gone underground during the crisis and more are thinking it is time to reassert the nonsense of the past. And so it goes....
MMT 101: “all prices are a function of what the government allows their banks to lend against things”; so it’s as if the Fed has delegated authority to the member institutions to increase the short term risk free rate by 0.5%
So now of course the NPVs of the banks govt bond assets are falling and resulting in regulatory capital deficiency (C=A-L):
JPMORGAN, GOLDMAN SACHS TOLD TO BOOST CAPITAL BUFFERS - WSJ
So you Art Degree lefties big “neoliberal conspiracy!” continues apace where these crafty geniuses lend munnie to monetarist moron inflationista asshole speculators to sell the bonds at lower prices to make a few pennies on interest in the quarter which reduces the value of their regulatory required govt security assets by $10Bs and requires them to raise even more capital to dilute themselves even more…
Yes these crafty “neoliberals!” are really geniuses and getting over on us again everyday! 😂
When I was a postgraduate student at Monash University in Melbourne, I had many debates with a senior academic who would become a co-author early in my academic career, about the relative importance of choice and constraint. In the standard mainstream choice-theoretic framework, people are conceived as maximising satisfaction through the choices they make subject to the opportunity set they face (the constraints). This simplistic version of human decision-making dominates mainstream economics and leads to nonsensical conclusions such that unemployment is a voluntary state where people are choosing leisure (a good) over work (bad) to maximise their well-being because the income coming from work (a good) is not sufficient on an hourly basis to offset the disutility that work engenders. That sort of thinking permeates the discipline. My former colleague kept saying that people make choices and you cannot deny that. The discussions were in relation to poverty incidence. My position was that it is trivial to say people make choices. We do, every day, but to understand complex phenomena such as poverty, it is better to focus on the constraints. That focus is likely to be more revealing. A person can be making choices but if their opportunity set is very narrow and any choice dooms that person to poverty then it doesn’t make much sense to dwell on the ‘free’ choice angle. Structuralists also agree with my emphasis here. Earlier this year (February 8, 2021), some academics associated with MIT in the US published a working paper – Why do people stay poor – and its results are revealing....
Bill Mitchell – billy blog Poverty is about lack of opportunity not individual characteristics Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=48736
Michael Hudson Interviewed on Kevin Barrett’s Truth Jihad Radio, 11/15/21
Podcast and transcript.
Michael Hudson — On Finance, Real Estate And The Powers Of Neoliberalism Falling into Line: Turning Endless Deficits into a Power Base Michael Hudson | President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and Guest Professor at Peking University. https://michael-hudson.com/2021/11/falling-into-line-turning-endless-deficits-into-a-power-base/
Stephanie Kelton | Professor of Public Policy and Economics at Stony Brook University, formerly Democrats' chief economist on the staff of the U.S. Senate Budget Committee, and an economic adviser to the 2016 presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders
One of the ongoing arguments about Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) that I run across is the general disdain for monetary policy among MMT proponents. (At one extreme, Warren Mosler argues that interest rate policy works in a way that is backwards versus the consensus.)
Interest Rate Policy Ineffectiveness
The MMT position is straightforward, yet critics seem incapable of framing it correctly. Although Mosler is not alone in his views, many academics have a more nuanced position: interest rate policy has mixed effects, and is much weaker than the mainstream assumes is true. (This is in line with many post-Keynesians, although post-Keynesians are all over the map in terms of specifics. I believe it is safe to say that some post-Keynesians have views about monetary policy that are extremely hard to distinguish from conventional ones.) Whether or not MMT proponents’ policy prescriptions have merit, the argument that interest rate policy is largely ineffectual is a stand alone area of debate....
What is causing so many people to take antidepressants? If you add up together all the percentages of the people who suffer from mental illnesses, it comes up a very large number. A lot of people are suffering from Generalised Anxiety Disorder, Body Dysmorphic Disorder, depression, ADHD, dysthymia (chronic unhappiness), the list goes on an on, and added together, it's huge.
New research shows how stress in families can cause children to get a disconnection between their amygdala - the primitive part of the brain that regulates fear - from their front cortex - the conscious part of the brain which tells the amygdala whether there is really anything to worry about, or not. When this is not properly connected, stress and fear can get out of control.
Therapy can repair this disconnection to some degree later in life, but with an enormous amount of hard work.
Watch the embedded video, it's so powerful. There is so much suffering in the world, and neoliberalism doesn't help.
I know this video comes over as a bit like an advert, but I think Dr Greg Baer is right, and his therapy gives hope to millions of children with ADHD. These children are being given stimulants, which can harm a growing young brain, which is already under a lot of dress, even more.
Greg Baer M.D. teaches you an ADHD treatment that is successful without medication.
On November 11, 2021, the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) related their BIS Bulletin No. 48 – Bottlenecks: causes and macroeconomic implications – which presents evidence that should help people who are becoming het up about the inflation numbers lately to calm down a bit. On June 8, 2021, the UK Guardian published an Op Ed I had written – Price rises should be short-lived – so let’s not resurrect inflation as a bogeyman – which I stand by. I have been criticised for dismissing the inflation threat and I regularly get E-mails announcing the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is ‘over’ and has been proven wrong by the rising inflation rates around the world. Those interventions actually break up my day with ‘humour’ – I am continually amazed how little people know who have such strong opinions. I always adopted the view that you work something out before forming an opinion. In this ‘social media’ era, the working out bit seems to have lapsed and people just jump in. That used to be called blind prejudice. Anyway, the BIS research is interesting and supports my on-going view that the current inflation trajectory still looks to be transitory and the forces that led to the supply bottlenecks will also likely unwind in the other direction to depress price rises.
Wake me up on this discussion about "inflation" when the pandemic is actually over with the global economy is operating normally—which is likely to be a new normal that is not foreseeable owing to the changes resulting from reactions to climate change, for example, and the condition of US-Chinese relations geo-economically going forward, e.g., increase rate of decoupling and increased rate of military expenditure owing to an arms race. In my view, there is actually a much greater threat of a global depression or war than an inflationary spiral, given the current trajectory and possible scenarios.
"Inflation" is not even a blip on the radar, except in some overheated brains and among those talking their book. And now that MMT is becoming generally understood, the previous talk of national bankruptcy has given way to the inflation constraint.
Econbrowser Now That’s Hyperinflation Menzie Chinn | Professor of Public Affairs and Economics, Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs, University of Wisconsin–Madison, co-editor of the Journal of International Money and Finance, and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research International Finance and Macroeconomics
The Biden Administration is being very hawkish towards Russia and China.
On this episode of Going Underground, we speak to former Middle East Advisor to the European Union and the Founder of Conflicts Forum Alastair Crooke. He discusses rising tensions between the US and China over the US’ tacit support for Taiwan independence, the ‘Kosovisation’ of Xinjiang and Taiwan, China and Russia’s refusal to continue to allow the US to shape the future of the world order, Western media hysteria over a supposed invasion of Ukraine by Russia’s Vladimir Putin and much more.
Stephanie Kelton | Professor of Public Policy and Economics at Stony Brook University, formerly Democrats' chief economist on the staff of the U.S. Senate Budget Committee, and an economic adviser to the 2016 presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders
Patrick Armstrong, retired analyst and diplomat (2008) serving in the Canadian Department of National Defence specializing in the USSR/Russia from 1984 and a Counsellor in the Canadian Embassy in Moscow in 1993-1996.
Andrei Martyanov, expert on Russian military and naval issues. Martyanov was born in Baku, USSR in 1963. He graduated from the Kirov Naval Red Banner Academy and served as an officer on the ships and staff position of Soviet Coast Guard through 1990. He took part in the events in the Caucasus which led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. In mid-1990s he moved to the United States where he currently works as Laboratory Director in a commercial aerospace group. He is a frequent blogger on the US Naval Institute Blog. He is author of Losing Military Supremacy, The (Real) Revolution in Military Affairs, and Disintegration: Indicators of the Coming American Collapse — Clarity Press
Alfred McCoy speculates about the likely economics and political consequences of climate change given what is known presently. Of course, a lot of the assumptions regarding the scenario are likely to change, making forecasting rather hypothetical. But it is an interesting read.
I am currently working on adding functionality to my Python agent-based model framework, so no other article from me this we…
I set up a Patreon to support my Python projects, and the agent-based model is the current focus. I wrote a few small pieces this week discussing recent work: here and here.
Today, we have a guest blogger in the guise of Professor Scott Baum from Griffith University who has been one of my regular research colleagues over a long period of time. Today, he follows on from my previous post – The financial markets should be kept away from the climate crisis solution (November 10, 2021) – and discusses the failure of the Australian federal government to produce a workable net-zero emissions plan.…
A direct solution would be to require true pricing based on inclusion of negative externality in the cost of production instead of socializing it. This is called internalizing externalities. It could be accomplished with an excise tax to adjust for true cost. This would make carbon-based energy sources uncompetitive with alternatives. Obviously, this would be extremely painful for energy users (everybody) during the transition, so it is likely politically infeasible until the tipping point is past, and the public awakens en masse and demands effective action.
Perhaps, beneath everything, there is inescapable pain.
My gastritis has got worse over the last year and this is why I have done less politics, but I hoped you enjoyed the various different topics. My GP has increased my medication, so I'm okay for now, but I'm a bit disappointed as I was hoping to recover.
Existence is suffering" is the common translation of the First Noble Truth of Buddhism. As an avid reader of Zen Buddhism, I’ve often argued that this Noble Truth isn’t true at all, or that it is simply a precursor to the other Noble Truths which teach one how to alleviate suffering. But recently I’ve changed my stance.
As a therapist, I am privy to the pain of many people. Many promising students have told me they won’t become therapists because they don’t feel they can handle listening to others’ pain. No one is in therapy because his life is amazing and he’s pain-free. So it is expected that a therapist hears, and sometimes dwells, in others' suffering.
What may be surprising, however, is how much pain people that aren’t my clients are in. Perhaps because I am a therapist, friends, colleagues, and students share their pain with me. Interestingly, their pain is often no less intense than those seeking relief in my therapy office; they struggle with it just as much. The point is the vast majority of the population is dealing with something painful.
I'm still intrigued by the Ouse Valley Viaduct which, it turns out, I have travelled over many times on my way to Brighton, a south of England coastal resort. My mum took me often to Brighton, and I visited it a lot with my friends in my teens and my 20's for days out and perhaps too many pints of real ale. It only takes about 1 hour and 10 minutes from London. In those days I would have had to have added on a 20 minute bus ride.
The last time I went to Brighton would have been about 5 years ago with my girlfriend. There are many bridges and viaducts on the journey, and as you can't really see the viaduct from inside the train, I wouldn't have known how beautiful it was. It's such a shame as I would have loved to have visited it a few times when I was younger.
My girlfriend has said that she will go with me when I go sometime soon. We will video the view from the train, and maybe I will put out my first video on YouTube, as well as here. My local train station is only a 10 minute walk away, and then getting the train to Haywards Heath - which goes over the viaduct - only takes about 50 minutes.
Below is a photograph that is very similar to the one that got me interested in the first place (the original was posted in part 1). I did a Google image search on it and up came the Ouse Valley Viaduct. It's worth expanding the photo because it's magnificent.
I've found some more interesting videos on the Ouse Valley Viaduct. This video is very good too, but what I especially like about it is that the video maker takes the drone through some of the centre (as in the above photo). I can't wait to get there and have a wander around this amazing structure. I'm so lucky it's nearby.
This video is very interesting which is as much about photography as it is about the Ouse Valley Viaduct. It's interesting because the photographer takes all the photos using a standard 50mm lens and I never knew that you can get such great photos from it. It has some more great shots from inside the viaduct - within the arches.
Today (November 17, 2021), the ABS released the latest – Wage Price Index, Australia – for the September-quarter 2021. The WPI data shows that nominal wages growth rose above levels recorded in previous quarters and the pattern resembled the pre-pandemic growth path – low to modest. The inflation rate continues to outstrip nominal wages growth, which means that workers in all sectors bar ‘Professional, scientific and technical services’ experienced on-going cuts drops in their real wages (purchasing power). The behaviour of nominal wages in Australia gives us a clear signal that there is little prospect of sustained inflationary pressures emerging from the labour market any time soon. Wages in the public sector grew by only 1.6 per cent over the 12 months as a result of the ridiculous wage freezes and wage caps that the federal and state governments are imposing. There can be no sustained recovery for the economy post Covid without a significant shift in the way we think about wages growth.
We had a blowout CPI print in the United States last week, which I probably should have discussed. Unfortunately for my writing productivity, I had some consulting work going as well as visiting family, so I did not have time to dig.
Since then, large numbers of electrons were spilled online discussing the inflation outlook. As I doubt that I will add any details that are novel at this point, I have decided to bow out of that discussion. Instead, I will just offer a few generic observations.
One of the important concepts one learns in studying the way firms work with respect to pricing and markups is the distinction between quantity and price adjustment over the course of an economic cycle. When economists talk of supply and demand, they usually refer to price adjustment, where prices adjust up or down when there is an imbalance between these aggregates. Orthodox economics presumes that prices adjust, for example, to eliminate an excess supply, which they apply to the labour market and conclude that the cure for mass unemployment is wage cutting. The problem is that in many circumstances, firms use quantity adjustments long before they contemplate price adjustments, because the former involves lower costs. The Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) ran a story from its business reporters today (November 16, 2021) – As migration restarts, will it hold down wages for everyone? – which has also become a feature news segment on its television coverage today. The analysis presented is seriously misleading. It not only fails to characterise the problem properly but buys into a highly contentious debate about whether migration has negative impacts on the labour market prospects for local workers. It behoves analysts to actually construct the problem correctly before they start taking sides in this debate. The ABC article fails in that regard which is disappointing. Their failure also reflects the lack of diversity in opinion they seek these days. They chose to simply rehearse the arguments presented by one pro-migration analysis as if it was definitive rather than seek expert opinion from neutral analysis. But it also demonstrates why understanding the difference between quantity and price adjustment is crucial to getting the conclusions right....
Oh those genius “neoliberals!” operating their elaborate “neoliberal conspiracy!” to screw the poors! What ever successful scam against the downtrodden will they think of next?
Here you can see they lend dumb asshole monetarist inflationista speculators munnie to sell govt bonds which reduces the price of their own HQLA $4$ and they lose $10Bs of shareholder equity in the bargain!
Geniuses! Geniuses I tell you! Oh you lefties here have these people nailed I tell you…
American automobile companies plan three months in advance, but Chinese companies plan years in advance. Chinese automobile companies bought up loss making European and American car companies and turned them around, making a profit. America CEOs know nothing about technology and just appease Wall Street, while China thinks long term and invest in its own chips, says Sandy Munro. China is making electric cars to European high standards, and Americans will want them, he adds. American CEOs think why manufacture better designed chips when they can get them cheap from China, which Sandy Munro says is just more crazy short terminism?
I have finally been able to read the latest fiscal statement – Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021 – from the H.M. Treasury, which was released on October 29, 2021. That 202 page document is not something anyone should spend time reading but in my job one has to in order to stay abreast of what is happening around the world. It also took me down the Office of Budget Responsibility snake hole to read their latest – Fiscal risks report – July 2021 – which obviously conditions the way the fiscal statement is framed. That is a really bad document. And as it happens, footnotes in that document take us further into the pit of New Keynesian fiction, where we find modelling that OBR relies on, that has the temerity to model fiscal shocks where labour markets always clear and households choose the unemployment rate, which is constructed as ‘leisure’, as they maximise their satisfaction. I suppose that is okay in a world where we assume households live to infinity. That is, nothing remotely like the world we live in. I don’t plan to analyse in detail the fiscal statement. Rather, here are some reflections on some of the material that the Treasury think is useful in framing the statement. Which helps to explain why these sorts of statements become lame quickly....
Back in the 1970s, Macpherson anticipated much of this. For him, Western capitalist liberal democracies and those in socialist and developing countries all had “genuine historical claims to the title democracy.”
Whether they were liberal or not, the “ultimate goal” of all democracies was “the same – to provide the conditions for the full and free development of the essential human capacities of all members of the society.”
Indeed, he considered capitalist liberal democracy (especially handicapped) in fulfilling this goad. Their formative institutions were liberal and representative, designed to protect the rights of private proprietors....
Moreover, Macpherson argued that liberal systems became more democratic, but not without making democracy more liberal. Constitutions and laws, and varying combinations of concessions to working people, electoral force and fraud, ensured democracy would not erode private property.
Today’s deepening corruption of U.S. democracy is rooted in the attempt to preserve wealth and privilege even when its ability to serve interests broader than its own has declined steeply.
Macpherson even warned that liberal democracy might prove inferior, when socialist and developing countries demonstrated that protecting the rights and privileges of the propertied minority was no longer necessary to expand productive power and efficiency. Decades after his passing, China’s productive achievements – the CPC’s ability to organize the greatest industrial revolution in history and take technological and ecological leadership without losing its legitimacy – underline Macpherson’s foresight.…
Why to expect continuing hybrid warfare with China and Russia that could go kinetic at any moment, given current conditions.
The US has framed this in terms of an existential conflict between liberalism—in which democracy and capitalism are equated — and "authoritarian" socialism as a socio-economic system. This is just an extension of the "existential" struggle between liberalism and communism of the Cold War punctuated by detente.
This moment in the historical dialectic is coming to head.
According to the World Nuclear Association (WNA), some 30 emerging economies around the world are currently considering, planning or starting nuclear power programmes.
In the short term, these projects will not significantly expand the global nuclear footprint, with principal growth coming in countries which already have well-established nuclear power infrastructure.
However, the WNA anticipates that, in the medium to long term, developing nations’ nuclear infrastructure will resemble that currently seen in Europe, North America and Japan.
Meanwhile, Third Way – a US-based think tank – predicts that the global market for nuclear could triple by 2050, thanks almost entirely to increased demand in emerging regions....
Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign watch phrase was “it’s the economy, stupid”. Today it would be “it’s the culture, idiot”.
He’s right, but this poses the question: why did this change? The question of, course, applies to the UK as well as the US.
One fact deepens the puzzle. It’s that trend growth in GDP per capita has halved since the 90s*. This should have made economic issues more important, because it’s much less obvious now that the economy can thrive without policy intervention.
Why the change? The usual reason. Follow the money and power. Cui bono?
Although he doesn't mention it specifically, once neoliberalism (Thatcherism) was established, the emphasis shifted to distraction ("dupe the rubes") to maintain it.
Stumbling and Mumbling The decline of economics Chris Dillow | Investors Chronicle https://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2021/11/the-decline-of-economics.html
Related
Contra William Nordhaus. "It's the assumptions, stupid."
China appreciates that Uzbekistan has a fairly developed internal railway network and has potential as a regional hub. Thus, as part of its Belt and Road Initiative, China has longstanding plans to construct a railway from Xinjiang through Kyrgyzstan to Uzbekistan and onward to Turkmenistan (and Iran.) The main hitch has been that Beijing insisted that the new rail line should adopt tracks with 1,435 millimetres width, which China and most of the world use, while the Soviet-era Russian gauge of 1,520 millimetres is prevalent in Central Asia.
Trust Chinese ingenuity to find a technological solution by double-tracking with the narrower international gauge run inside the larger Russian one, which would also reduce costs of the project by eliminating the need to make transitions at the Chinese-Kyrgyzstani and Turkmenistani-Iranian borders.
In fact, a 2.2 kilometre long Sino-Russian Tongjiang-Nizhneleninskoye railway bridge across the Amur River, the latest project completed under China’s ambitious Belt and Road initiative, has become a ‘technology demonstrator’ using the new method of double tracking.
The first test train crossed the border in August. The Chinese Communist Party has stated as the goal a rail link all the way to London. With the commissioning of the bridge, the railway transportation distance from China’s Heilongjiang province to Moscow will be shortened by 809 kilometres, cutting 10 hours of transportation time....
Interesting info on developments in Central Asia, but the takeaway is double tracking as explained in the above quotation.
I never knew about the tragic story of Badfinger as they were not of my generation and they didn't make my type of music. The other day, though, I came across this video and it's an incredibly sad story. The singer / songwriters, Pete Ham and Tom Evans, were under enormous pressure, believing they had lost everything. First, Pete Ham took his life, but a few years later the tragid story repeated itself which led to Tom Evans doing the same.
If you found the video interesting and want to delve further, then part 1 of a 6 part series is posted below. It is excellent, and on YouTube all the other parts follow.
Watching the videos got me me into listening to more of their songs, and yep, they were terrific!
Parallel universes, alternate dimensions or multiverses are fairly common when it comes to sci-fi movies, whether that be the Spider-Man movies, Star Trek or the animated Coraline or even the cult classic Narnia. But what if living in a parallel universe is not just a far fetched concept that could only exist in feature films?
What if we are living in one right now?
Welcome to Factnomenal and in today’s video we will dig deep into why Scientists so strongly believe that we might be living in a multiverse.
this viaduct is amazing. It was built in 1839 by bringing all the materials down the River Ouse . It is roughly 96 feet high and 1500 feet long and took over 11 million bricks to build.
had to time the video between the train time table, but still gave enough time to capture this.
