Economic Questions: The Stephanie Kelton Question
An overview of Stephanie Kelton’s The Deficit Myth explains the core findings of MMT. and how debt hysteria serves the rich, not the public.
Read more...Category Archives: The dismal science
The Making of the MAGA Right
As the old baseball saying goes, sometimes “You can’t tell the players without a scorecard.” This became especially true since Curt Flood opened the floodgates to free agency more than fifty years ago when he refused to be treated as disposable property by the owner of the St. Louis Cardinals, one August A. Busch, Jr. […]
Read more...Paying for Euroskepticism
A new data analysis shows that Euroskepticism, as in regional voting for nationalist/anti-European Union policies, produces lower growth.
Read more...How Neoliberalism Is Digging the Holes of Flagging, Indebted Economies Even Deeper
Indebted, low growth economies have a path for recovery. But neolibearlism stands in the way.
Read more...Mission Impossible: Why the US Cannot Reverse Its Manufacturing Decline
Debunking magical thinking about the US regaining its manufacturing mojo at scale.
Read more...The Macroeconomic Implications of Extreme Weather Events: Insights from Advanced Economies
Economists are starting to come to grips with the costs of weather/climate change induced disasters. But are their approaches adequate?
Read more...How Will Capitalism End? Essays on a Failing System
Upon reading this collection of essays (the title of this post) from Wolfgang Streeck and then contemplating our current world, The Second Coming of William Butler Yeats comes to mind: Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon […]
Read more...Economic Questions: The E F Schumacher Question
E F Schumacher of Small Is Beautiful, appeared influential in his heyday, yet his precepts seem not to have gotten a durable following. Why?
Read more...Economic Myths: Homo Economicus
Richard Murphy is starting to take part bad economic idea. This series may wind up having no ending.
Read more...Economic Justice, Desert, and Capitalism (Again)
Ironically, or maybe not, popular ideas and even those of economists about economic justice are at odds with ownership of capital.
Read more...The J K Galbraith Question: The Tyranny of Private Consumption
Can advanced economies free themselves of the pathology that John Kenneth Galbraith warned about, of excessive consumption?
Read more...The Milton Friedman Question
A critical look at the anarcho-libertarian (per his son) propagandist Milton Friedman.
Read more...Politics, Government, and Science During Pandemic Times
When asked in early 2000 how long I thought COVID-19 would last, I answered three years. Alas, it has now been nearly six years since a frightening respiratory disease was first noticed in Hubei Province centered in Wuhan. Retrospective analyses indicate the virus was already circulating in other parts of the world. It soon became […]
Read more...The Karl Marx Question
Karl Marx has aged well. What happens if you take his analysis seriously?
Read more...Michael Hudson: Who Writes the New Rules as Power Shifts Away from the US?
Michael Hudson discusses many of the responses to the US loss of economic dominance, from Europe’s self-immolation to China’s lending.
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