Five Reasons Congress Should Be Deeply Ashamed About Jobs
How Congress made itself a big part of the “where are the jobs?” problem.
Read more...Category Archives: Economic fundamentals
“Profitless” Stocks, Underinvestment, the Cannibalization of Labor, and Levitating Stock Prices
our humble blogger generally refrains from writing about stocks for a host of reasons. But several interesting news bits have prompted me to depart from my usual practice.
Read more...Lynn Parramore: Boomerang Babies – Record Numbers of Young Adults Live with Parents at Terrible Cost
Facing big debts and few decent jobs, today’s young people can’t get started in life.
Read more...Austerity Claims Victory in Europe
Yves here. Even though Delusional Economics has moved into a guardedly positive stance on Europe, the “recovery” is halting enough in Europe that there are still quite a few analysts on the other side of the fence.
Read more...European Pundits Starting to Give Up on the Eurozone
We’ve been pointing out for some time that Germany has refused to budge from wanting contradictory things relative to the Eurozone. Now something still has to break, but some of my correspondents who’ve just been in Europe now think that we will see a political crisis in Europe before we see an economic one, and that, like objects in your rear view mirror, may be closer than it appears.
Read more...More Good News from Europe
Yves here. I don’t want to be withholding good news when there is good news to be had. But remember, the ISM results for Europe are just over 50, which is the difference between growth and contraction. So in this context, “good news,” given how high unemployment is in the Eurozone periphery, is sort of like “the vital signs are improving enough that the patient might be able to leave intensive care and go into a regular hospital room.”
Read more...“The Media Just Won’t Report on This Crappy Economy,” Such As 80% of US Adults Near Poverty, GDP Funny Business
Reader Cathryn Mataga complained yesterday in comments about the under-reporting of how bad things are out in the real world where most people live. It’s not hard to find proof of her thesis.
Read more...Europe’s Good News, Bad News
Data out of Europe is showing relative improvement on several important fronts, but is this merely stabilization or “less bad” as opposed to finally turning a corner?
Read more...James Galbraith on Social Breakdown and Financial Stress in Europe and Why the Word “Stimulus” Needs to be Banned
Yanis Varoufakis provided the English translation of a new interview with James Galbraith published in Suddeutsche Zeitung. Galbraith focuses on institutional arrangements, the need for restructuring and reform, and constraints on growth.
Read more...Lynn Parramore: The Depressing Tale of How Greedy Financial Titans Crushed Innovation and Destroyed Our Economy
Whatever happened to innovation in America?
Read more...Europe Extends and Pretends
As I’ve been covering over the last few months the data coming out of Europe of late has been slowly getting better, and last nights’ PMI continued the trend. But “better” still needs to be put in context.
Read more...Four Headwinds to the US Housing Recovery
Yves here. This post from MacroBusiness describes three risks facing the American housing recovery, and I thought I’d add a fourth, which is the open question of how much longer private equity funds and other speculators will continue to bid up housing prices.
Read more...Why It’s Absurd that America Doesn’t Tax Wall Street’s Transactions
Yves here. The post below from Paul Buchheit makes a persuasive layperson’s case for a financial transactions tax. There is an equally sound case to be made from a financial markets viewpoint.
Read more...Beyond Debt and Growth: An Interview with Robert Pollin
Yves here. As readers likely recall, Thomas Herndon, Michael Ash, and Robert Pollin of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst wrote a paper, “Does High Public Debt Consistently Stifle Economic Growth? A Critique of Reinhart and Rogoff,” which revealed serious methodological problems with one of the linchpin papers used to justify cutting government spending even in times of recession. Robert Pollin here discusses some of the bigger issues in the political and economic debates on austerity and the aftermath of the financial crisis.
Read more...China’s Most Famous Ghost City Busts
The Chinese government, as has been widely reported, is trying to cool growth, in large measure to take the hot air out of its shadow banking sector. But can it engineer its hoped-for soft landing?
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