MMT argues that “taxes drive money” in the sense that imposition of a tax that is payable in the national government’s own currency will create demand for that currency. Sovereign government does not really need revenue in its own currency in order to spend.
Read more...The third industrial revolution is long in tooth. What does that portend for investments and the economy?
Read more...High levels of un- and underemployment among the young are undermining their mental health. And the damage might be lasting.
Read more...Michael Hudson discusses the economic and political motives behind making Ukraine a focal point in a new cold war, such as the fact that the Ukraine is an important supplier of military equipment to Russia.
Read more...Why the much-envied position of being a chronic exporter isn’t quite a bed of roses.
Read more...Understanding the odds and possible impact of forecasting error should be a important element of policy design. But it isn’t!
Read more...How America’ s abject fealty to the financial services industry, and its promotion of open capital markets in emerging economies, privatization and its tolerance of tax havens, have destroyed US credibility in Eastern Europe.
Read more...Yves here. On the occasion of an all-time high, a hard look at how the Dow Jones Industrial Average is constituted is in order.
Read more...Quantitative easing has been a controversial policy even among the financiers who benefitted from it.
Read more...Yves here. I managed to miss this VoxEU post from last month, and it is still timely. It argues that economists have generally been using the wrong measure of relative dollar strength to assess how the level of the currency played into the loss of manufacturing jobs and insufficient internal demand, now better known as “secular stagnation”.
Read more...How Latvia, a test case for neoliberal colonialism, has proven to be a test case of how finance-serving policies crush labor and enterprise.
Read more...It’s been creepy to see economists and the financial media cheering the re-levering by American households as a sign that they economy is on the mend and consumers are regaining their will to shop. The number of Americans who are tapping into their 401 (k) accounts is proof that the financial health of ordinary Americans is far from robust.
Read more...On the danger that China’s overgrown shadow banking system poses to the economy, and the practical and political obstacles to curbing it.
Read more...By Hugh, who is a long-time commenter at Naked Capitalism. Originally published at Corrente. A complete archive of Hugh’s reports can be found here The Jobs Report in Brief This is a very schizophrenic jobs report. In the seasonally adjusted “official” data, the unemployment rate dropped an amazing four-tenths of a percent to 6.3% but […]
Read more...Wow, Obama is really losing it. He can’t even manage a good war scare any more.
Read more...