The Birth of a Eurasian Century: Russia and China Do Pipelineistan
Russia and China, along with other developing economies, are exploring ways to create an Eurasian alliance to go toe-to-toe with the US economic hegemony.
Read more...Category Archives: Economic fundamentals
Philip Pilkington: Why Thomas Piketty is Wrong About Inflation and Interest Rates
Thomas Piketty’s views on inflation and interest rates are decidedly un-Keynesian and wrong to boot.
Read more...Randy Wray: What are Taxes For? The MMT Approach
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...Current Problems Associated with the End of the Third Industrial Revolution
The third industrial revolution is long in tooth. What does that portend for investments and the economy?
Read more...UK Survey Finds High Levels of Depression and Desperation Among the Young
High levels of un- and underemployment among the young are undermining their mental health. And the damage might be lasting.
Read more...Michael Hudson: The New Cold War’s Ukraine Gambit
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...The Chronic Exporters’ Curse?
Why the much-envied position of being a chronic exporter isn’t quite a bed of roses.
Read more...Richard Alford: Not Only Are Economists in Policy Roles Bad at Forecasting, They Also Do a Poor Job of Allowing for Error
Understanding the odds and possible impact of forecasting error should be a important element of policy design. But it isn’t!
Read more...Has America’s Use of Finance as a Foreign Policy Tool Backfired?
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...The Dow Jones Industrial Average is a Hoax
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...Why QE May Have Done Net Damage
Quantitative easing has been a controversial policy even among the financiers who benefitted from it.
Read more...Is the Strong Dollar the Real Cause of the Collapse of US Manufacturing and Secular Stagnation?
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...Michael Hudson: Stockholm Syndrome in the Baltics – Latvia’s Neoliberal War against Labor and Industry
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...Americans Raid 401(k)s, Replacing Home Equity Withdrawals as Way to Make Ends Meet
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...Ilargi: A Stampede of Elephants in the China Shop
On the danger that China’s overgrown shadow banking system poses to the economy, and the practical and political obstacles to curbing it.
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