Corporations are also using their profits to repurchase their own shares (thereby boosting stock indices to record levels), to finance mergers and acquisitions (which increase concentration, but not investment, and often involve cutting jobs)...
Overcoming the epidemic of loneliness (tags)
The planet can do without human beings, but humanity cannot do a second without the planet. A subsystem can never dominate the superordinate system, nor can it grow indefinitely within it. For this simple reason, the two central premises of industrial society - endless growth and domination of nature - are deadly illusions.
Limitation to 1.5 degrees is not possible with our economic system (tags)
In economics, an international mainstream dominates, which establishes optimized formal models that exclude many areas of economic relations, such as feminism, historical school, as well as post-Keynesianism, which considers the importance of demand and demand to be at least as important as good conditions for companies.
Numerous economists had predicted falling real estate prices and rental prices during the pandemic. But prices are rising. Once again, economists are surprised that reality does not want to follow their models... Central banks are squeezing even more money into the financial markets than ever before.
Chicago School Economists Got it Wrong. Strong Antitrust Policy Boosts the Economy (tags)
When mergers increase market concentration, we know that competition has been harmed even if to a small extent. Since this is the case, it makes sense to ask the merging parties to establish that the merger will provide benefits to the economy.
Top Economist: As Pandemic Recedes, a Chance to Rethink Unemployment (tags)
The Chamber of Commerce, for example, has pushed the U.S. to stop expanded unemployment insurance benefits so that people will be forced to return to low-wage jobs. Some Republican-dominated states have jumped on board with this idea.
Disempowering the US cartels (tags)
Technology corporations mostly form oligopolies, if not monopolies. U.S. President Joe Biden is signaling that his administration wants to crack down on monopolies... Klobuchar's bill aims to boost antitrust action in many ways: it seeks to increase funding for the FTC and the Justice Department's Antitrust Division.
How Misguided Financial Policy Strengthens the Right-Wing (tags)
Capitalism has shown how democratic processes can be easily evaded. The Chicago boys carried out their radical reform program that was known as shock therapy. This included dismantling social state structures, opening the market to foreign investors and shattering unions
What is a Crisis? A Retrospect on the 2008 Economic and Financial Crisis (tags)
The economic guild interprets crisis through an ideological lens. The financial crisis is redefined as a state debt crisis. Illuminating the systemic causes of crisis or discussing the crisis proclivity of the capitalist system is not possible anymore.
Prohibiting Micro-Second Betting on the Exchanges (tags)
The financial sector that has gone off course should serve the real economy again in the future. The exchange functions like a gigantic casino. Throwing some sand int he gears with a transactions tax would slow down the speculation.
Why Mainstream Economists are Responsible for Electing Donald Trump (tags)
There are lots of economists, both everyday and academic, who understand that a tiny group at the top has captured most of the benefits of trade agreements and other measures that have allowed U.S. corporations to engage in increased international trade,
The Crises of Today's Economy (tags)
The market is not a subject but an instrument. Nevertheless "the primacy of the market" replaced "the primacy of politics." Neoliberalism actually serves the interests of finance capital. A doctor whose therapy causes sicknesses cannot understand this. Our elites are in great distress.
65 Economists Call for QE for People in the Eurozone (tags)
The campaign for Quantitative Easing for People is currently supported by 21 organizations and aims to redirect money created through the QE program to the real economy by either financing public investment spending in the eurozone or by distributing a citizens' dividend to all residents
The Crisis of Economists (tags)
The mainstream economy doesn't know what an argument is any more. Claims or assertions are made. This neoclassicism is not a science but resembles a religion that proclaims dogmas. The economy is a social science that offers interpretations.
Video: It's Time to Get Radical On Inequality, Stiglitz, 18 min (tags)
We are the least consistent with the American Dream. An economic system that doesn't raise standards is a failure.
Economic Crises as Sicknesses and Catastrophes (tags)
The 2008 financial crisis is often wrongly described as a "state debt crisis" where cause and effect are inverted and economists and the market are released from responsibility. Sickness and catastrophe metaphors dominate discussion
Can Keynes Rescue Europe from the Euro Crisis? (tags)
Keynes' theories and concepts were pushed back with the rise of neoliberalism in the 1980s. A complete change of course occurred when state spending cuts, lower wages and devaluations failed. The state spent money to create demand for products and services.
Economists for $15 minimum wage (tags)
Wages in the US have been stagnant for 35 years. Milton Friedman and conservative trickle-down neoliberal economists have long dominated mainstream economics. Productivity and profits have soared while investments and wages have been stagnant.
For a Different Economics (tags)
Economists are criticized everywhere for their onesidedness, their focus on markets and their inability to deal with the burning problems... From neoclassical assumptions "more is better" or markets lead to efficient distribution, a perspective on the world results that sets efficiency over justice
Liberating the Economy from Prejudices (tags)
Economics is not an immutable unchangeable fate but a human system where changing rules changes outcomes. James Galbraith and Joseph Stiglitz are two well-known economists who question the myths of conventional economics, the self-healing, efficient and deregulated market
Audio Interview: States of Emergency (tags)
In his latest book, Patrick Brantlinger probes the state of contemporary America. Brantlinger takes aim at neoliberal economists, the Tea Party movement, gun culture, immigration, waste value, surplus people, the war on terror, technological determinism, and globalization.
Studying Economics Today is Like Brainwashing (tags)
The blind trust in efficient markets must be replaced and bankers given a new understanding. Profit making is different than profit maximization. Banks should be a public function, not a casino and the real economy and the environment not abandoned.
The State Should Rescue the Market Economy (tags)
A balance recession is more than a temporary slump of the economy. During a balance recession, private economic actors try to reduce their debts. The cheap money seeps out on the financial markets where it leads to new bubbles. The labor market does not function like other markets. Falling wages did not lead to more employment - as claimed for decades.
Economists Argue over Distribution Question (tags)
More and more economists take distribution questions seriously. When inequality becomes too great in a national economy, the economy becomes unstable. Private indebtedness and income inequality massively increased in the US Financial markets uncoupled from real economy
6 Top Economists Explain Which President Is More Likely to Speed the Next Financial Crisis (tags)
Five years after the horrific financial collapse of 2007-2008, the economy remains fragile. No one is quite sure when another financial crash might happen. Five years? Ten years? There’s widespread worry, however, that whenever it comes it's likely to make 2007-2008 look like a picnic in comparison. A short list of some of our most urgent vulnerabilities shows that we could easily be plunged into hell once again unless politicians act responsibly and forcefully to avoid it:
Vancouver Canada has 23 community centers, some with swimming pools that can take your breath away. Learning from other cultures and countries is a sign of strength, not of weakness. Without a social contract we become wolves. Without public goods, the market economy fails.
On the Solutions of Liberal Economists (tags)
The crisis has shaken economics to its foundations. The neoliberal mainstream has lost its support; economists alternate between self-doubt and arrogance. Once they believed in the rationality of economic actors and markets and the notion that financial management exists to serve the real economy.
"A seeming consensus among economists can virtually force the shaping of political opinions.. For 30 years, neoliberalism marginalized all other schools, above all Keynesianism - and all of us hit a brick wall.."
The Autism of Economists (tags)
Analogous to a mechanical system, neoclassicists understood the economy as a perpetual cycle of production and consumption kept in balance by the price mechanism.
Economics' sharpest critics regard it as an auxiliary science of astrology, a sect that sings its same little song. Classical authors like John Kenneth Galbraith are finally rediscovered. Exactness is impossible. The coming generation should be protected from mono-cultural ideology
The Invisible Hand Doesn't Help Any More (tags)
Neoclassicism starts from the assumpti8ons that people always act rationally and market processes always lead to optimal results on account of the price mechanism. The market fails. Its view of the person as Homo oeconomicus must be replaced by the Homo cooperativus.
The Rule of Supply-Side Economists (tags)
Supply-side economists dominate wherever one looks in politics, economics and the media. That wages and salaries are not onl.y costs but also demand usually doesn't interest supply-side economists.
Dominant Economy Pretends Its Breakdown Was Unforeseeable (tags)
The consensus of the past two decades on how the macro-economy functions is shattered. The breakdown of the dominant economy is a consequence of the financial crisis, the "great shock."
Grim 2012 Economic Outlook (tags)
class war
Alternative for the Euro Zone (tags)
In a new study, leftist economists from a dozen EU countries criticize the policy of the German government in the Euro crisis. Its analysis and the proposed solutions are wrong. The state deficits are not the cause of the crisis. The financial crisis caused the state deficits.
Criticism of Economists (tags)
Economists with their models could predict the values of economic variables but did not foresee the greatest worldwide economic crisis in 80 years. Mechanical-deterministic neoclassicism is a self-contained theoretical model offering simple answers.
Some Economists Got It Right - Who Are These Economists? (tags)
Twill 14: The Impossible Magazine is a tour de force. Alternative economics emphasizes reduced working hours, investment in the infrastructure, person-oriented work, labor-intensive investment, community centers, redistribution, free Internet books and soft power.
The Economy Sinks in a Deep Crisis of Meaning (tags)
Economists are compared with astrologers and mocked as crystal-ball readers because they are frequently way off the mark with their growth forecasts. Economists have not learned the great lessons. Mainstream economy entrenched itself behind a model world and often faded out reality.
Manifesto of Appalled Economists: The Shocked and the Outraged (tags)
Tax cuts for the super-rich and corporations promised economic growth and more jobs but produced exploding inequality and generalized insecurity. The US faces a revenue crisis and a war spending crisis. Tax cuts, wars and bailouts of banks and firms caused massive US deficit.
class war
Economics as Brainwashing and Careerist Gets the Job (tags)
The self-regulating market and stgylizing all problems as exogenous, not endogenous are fatal myths as proven by Enron, Tepco, Citigroup and all corporate tax cheats. Can the real economy survive when financial profits amount to 40% of all profits? Viva economic learning!
Manifesto of Appalled Economists (tags)
State debts may be caused more by reduced corporate tax revenues than excess spending. Through "location competition," corporations play off state and countries and harvest tax write-offs and sweetheart-assessments. Through "state capture," the state becomes a trough.
Economists Rediscover the Distrribution Question (tags)
Higher taxes for the rich-traditionally a horror to liberal economists-appear in a new light as state transfers to poorer sectors. Those richer than 95% pocket around 20% of the total income. It was less than half as much at the end of the 70s.
The Silence of Economists (tags)
In 1936 Keynes was the first established economist who explained how a free enterprise system in no way realized a state of balance by itself. The state must take an active role in crisis times to prevent an economic downswing ending in a catastrophe.
Economics is not a Science (tags)
"Observations are central in a subject like economics where experiments are not possible.. Mathematics is misused to transport a certain ideology, the neoclassical theory of the market.. Capitalist crisis phenomena have made a fool of the harmony theory of the market.."
Manifesto of French Economists: Why We Are Shocked (tags)
On October 11 three million French workers were on strike against President Sarkozy's authoritarian attacks on social security and pensions. "Despite its obvious debacle, the neoliberal dogma is still regarded as the only correct economic system."
The Rebirth of Economic Thought from the Ashes of the Crisis (tags)
Reagan announced the state was "the problem" for the functioning of the economy. State action could not solve economic problems. The latest reality of economic crisis thoroughly destroyed the neoclassical theses. The crisis showed its ideological limitation and conditionality.
In the US, people have lived above their means for years and now must permanently lower their living standard. In America as in Europe, economists expect a tremendous rise in unemployment in the fall. This does not mean people will shop more.
We persuaded ourselves permanent economic growth was the answer to all questions. We should now engage in a growth debate about the nature of this growth, not whether we should renounce on economic growth. Increased GDP can mean destruction of foundations in long-term
Fear of the Great Depression (tags)
The acute danger exists of a self-reinforcing downward spiral from deflation, increasing debts and new problems in the financial sector..Degenerate banks must be closed by the state in a controlled way. Politics must try to reduce the uncertainties of consumers.
Time for a Bad Ideas Bank (tags)
The global economic disaster plunges economics into a legitimation crisis-not yet noticed by the vast majority of the affected. The current financial crisis involves dogmas that markets function best and correct their own mistakes.
The immiseration of the working class – Marx was right! (tags)
Just a couple of weeks ago, America's government tax collectors, the Internal Revenue Service, issued a new report. The IRS found that the richest 1% of Americans earned a record 21.2% of all income in 2005, up from 19% the year before. At the same time, the bottom 50% earned just 12.8% of all income in 2005, down from 13.4%. This was a record. IRS data only go back to 1986, but other academic research suggests that the last time wealthy Americans had such a high percentage of the national income was in the 1920s. And there's more. The IRS data show that the incomes of people right in the middle of all the income brackets (where half earn less and half earn more) fell 2% between 2000 and 2005 when adjusted for inflation, to $30,881. At the same time, the income level for the top 1% grew 3% to $364,657, or over ten times as much! This shows that capitalism is not only a breeder of economic crisis, war and waste, but is also a system of grotesque exploitation and injustice. When Marx wrote Das Kapital around 150 years ago, he argued that "pauperism (poverty) forms the condition of capitalist production and of the capitalist development of wealth... in proportion as capital accumulates, the situation of the worker, be his payment high or low, must grow worse".
The Underrated Power of Economists (tags)
During the Great Depression between the two world wars, the Brit John Maynard Keynes came to an insight that was implemented in the 1960s. The state must guide the economy by its spending to avert the danger of depression.
Brazil: The "brake" is COPOM. (tags)
The logic of the the Growth Acceleration Program opposes classic economists as Michael Kalecki and John Keynes. The GAP that does not contain a expansionist monetary politics is not the GAP, is the anti-GAP, as, by the way, the last act of the Copom made clear.
In "1984," George Orwell warned that war would become a domestic necessity to divert the people from economic contradictions. Inequality may promote productivity but also undermines public spirit and social ochesion
America's Glorious Empire of Debt (tags)
Economists have all become like rich notables in the time of Trajan, doing the emperor's work whether they are on his payroll or not.
Economists on China: Silence of the Scams (tags)
Conservative economists worship the market, but don’t like to talk about China, where state control over capital allocation and rigid controls on currency exchange rates have produced a record rate of economic growth.
Economists and their Ideologies (tags)
The conventional economy starts from the assumption that a rational economic actor always sees himself in competition to protect his own interests..This model corresponds to the reptile brain and a territorial conduct.. Cooperative being does not oppose nature..
Economics for a Shrinking Planet (tags)
The expansion of humanity's ecological impact on the planet cannot continue much longer without violating natural thresholds. To survive, we must develop a new way of thinking about our economic activities. This article briefly describes the author's approach to such a new mode of thought.
US Job Cuts Surge 125 % (tags)
US Job Cuts Surge 125 Percent In October
Economics is actually a form of voodoo religion. . .
Washington - There was only one problem with President George W. Bush's claim Thursday that the nation's top economists forecast substantial economic growth if Congress passed the president's tax cut: The forecast with that conclusion doesn't exist.
BTL: Ten Nobel Laureates and Hundreds of Economists Condemn... (tags)
...White House Tax Cut Proposal. Interview with Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, conducted by Between The Lines' Scott Harris
Shop Everyday As If It Were Your Last Shopping Day, America! (tags)
Economists, in an effort to curb a recession which some are calling inevitable, have urged that the American public–those still with jobs anyway–go back to their daily routines and reengage in normal consumer behavior....