Heiner Flassbeck — Brazil, Croatia and Greece: does one need ‘neoliberal reforms to solve a country’s economic problems’?

That consequently a neoliberal agenda will prevail in a country in which the social-democratic government suffered greatly because of global neoliberalism and at the end proved to be unsuccessful because of a neoliberal assault is absurd. The real tragedy is that absurdity has become an outstanding characteristic of our era.

flassbeck economics
Brazil, Croatia and Greece: does one need ‘neoliberal reforms to solve a country’s economic problems’?

Heiner Flassbeck

Sober Look— A stream of poor economic reports from the Eurozone may be more than just the "Putin factor"

Europe rolling over. Demand collapsing.

Sober Look
A stream of poor economic reports from the Eurozone may be more than just the "Putin factor"

See also Barry Ritholtz.  Europe Is Highly Dependent On Russian Gas

Zero Hedge, The European "Recovery" Is Over: Italy "Unexpectedly" Enters Triple-Dip Recession

Mark Gongloff — Why Half Of America Incorrectly Thinks We're In A Recession

The Great Recession ended more than five years ago, but good luck trying to convince many Americans of that.Nearly half of all Americans, 49 percent, think the recession never ended, according to a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. And that number actually represents progress, since 57 percent felt that way in March. In fact, many polls have consistently shown that most Americans have long thought the recession, which officially ended in June 2009, is still ongoing.The new NBC/WSJ poll has a chart that helps illustrate why this might be: Despiterecord levels of hiring and record highs in the stock market, huge numbers of people say they're still feeling the recession's effects. Here's the poll data:

Summary: It's the capital share v. the labor share.

The Huffington Post
Why Half Of America Incorrectly Thinks We're In A Recession
Mark Gongloff

Kimball Corson — Capitalism in America Has Failed

Capitalism does a reasonably good job of efficiently organizing the production process and using limited resources efficiently and effectively to produce the goods and services. With some glaring monopolistic pricing exceptions, deriving from various sources, it does a pretty good job with such organization and efficiency. (Before the demise of the antitrust laws, the monopolistic pricing exceptions were much rarer.) However, capitalism has a serious problem everywhere it is practiced in the world these days.

It fails badly on the distribution side. The income derived from the production process is not well distributed to the population for the purchase of the goods and services produced. It becomes concentrated in the hands of too few and excessive income inequality arises, aggregate demand is compromised, the economy is compromised and together with such inequality, monopolistic pricing becomes more widespread and prevalent. Just what we observe in the United States today.

Wandering the Oceans: SailBlogs

Capitalism in America Has Failed
Kimball Corson