The U.S. labor market continued to strengthen in June, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Strong June data and upward revisions for April and May put payroll job gains for the second quarter of 2013 ahead of those for the first three months of the year. The unemployment rate remained … Read more
Here’s a piece from yesterday’s NYTimes by Annie Lowrey: Warren Mosler, a Deficit Lover With a Following While this is a mostly good piece on Warren, Lowrey gets enough of it wrong to call into question her ability as a reporter. Yes, Warren designed and built a yacht, and he designed and built great race cars … Read more
Yesterday I illustrated the unsustainable accounting growth engine of imports occurring in the euro area (EA). Today I’ll present more of a forward looking analysis on private domestic demand within the euro area: consumption and investment. If current levels of real retail sales hold at the euro area level, then the contributions to growth in … Read more
Or should I say barely contracting on imports. In the traditional sense, growth in imports does not make a whole lot of sense. Normal economies import and export things, such that statistical agencies subtract the dollar amount of things that are made in other economies but consumed domestically (imports) out of their tally of spending on … Read more
That was the title of an illuminating EABCN/CEPR/Banque de France/European University Instituteconference I attended last week (organized by Philippe Bacchetta, Laurent Ferrara, Jean Imbs, andMassimiliano Marcellino). The program is here, and papers here. The conference call described the focus: In an increasingly integrated global economy, assessing the propagation of shocks is becoming of major interest to the international economic cycles analysis. … Read more
If not, then why impose drug tests on food stamp recipients? H.L. Mencken observed “If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.” Mencken’s spirit, in the Valhalla of political commentators, must be grinning ear to ear. America’s farm districts are among the most reliably Republican in the … Read more
Last Week the White House released a long-anticipated Climate Action Plan. Conservatives have been swift to attack it as a “backdoor energy tax.” The critics could not be more wrong. A carbon tax, or energy tax of any kind, is the one big piece that is missing from the President’s plan. Despite the criticism, though, … Read more
China Investment Corporation (CIC), the country’s main sovereign wealth fund, posted a 10.65% return on its overseas investment in 2012, registering an above 5% cumulative annualized return since its establishment in 2007. This is a significant improvement compared with the 4.3% loss last year, the fund’s worst performance in 5 years. As a young member … Read more
When learned economists err in what they say and write, we can continue the discussion on substantive grounds. However, we have a major problem when they know how the facts stand but nevertheless publicly say and write something different because it serves certain ideas shared by narrow elites, or because they are paid by interest … Read more
We continue to receive comments and questions regarding our recent (April 29) post on population dynamics in the new European Union member states. In particular, we have been asked what has been the role of unemployment as a driver of population decline. The unemployment/population decline connection is also relevant to the internal devaluation carried out … Read more