economics

Whatever the outcome in Ukraine, one thing is for sure the economic reverberations will be felt by everyone for years to come as the world divides between the West and a rapidly reshaping Eurasia.

The post Sanctions: The Blowback appeared first on Renegade Inc.

Replacing things that aren’t broken helps push up GDP, but is absurd. Much like Tory economic policy

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On November 4, 2008, Queen Elizabeth visited the London School of Economics for the opening of a new building. While there she was given an explanation on the origins and effects of the global financial crisis. At the end of briefing the Queen asked only one question: “Why did nobody notice it?” Professor of Economics […]

Wassily Leontief,  a Russian-born U.S. economist,  was and still is one of the most recognized names in economics, linked to the development of input-output analysis for which he won the “Nobel Prize” in Economic Sciences in 1973. Leontief earned his Ph.D. degree under the direction of a German economist and sociologist Werner Sombart in Berlin […]

It’s Wednesday and also a holiday period, so just a few things today. First, I discuss a research paper that has concluded that central bankers have been using the wrong model for years which has resulted in flawed estimates of…

by Rosalie Bull

“Planned obsolescence” has become a household term for 21st century Americans. No wonder, considering that most household appliances today have been designed in accordance with the practice. Now more than ever, things just aren’t made like they used to be. In fact, they’re made to fail—often within a fraction of their potential lifespans—in order to spur more consumption.

What have we here, Santa?

The post Ending Planned Obsolescence: a Nonpartisan Movement for Steady Staters to Support appeared first on Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy.

I have a major reporting deadline today and also have to travel interstate, which means I have no spare time at all. So for today, I am promoting a Podcast I recorded a few weeks ago with Steve Grumbine at…

The payments system is merely a technical and bookkeeping question, mundane in the end. The idea of operating it with only reserves puts in stark relief a far more important question: What is the point of banks at all?

This sixteen-part series, The Souls of the People, will explore these issues and the ideas and economics behind them. The values, origins, economics and philosophy behind the call to "cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub" (Norquist). The creation of think tanks specifically to provide a pseudo-intellectual foundation for inequality, and that along with media convince the middle class to vote against their own interests. The rise, reasons for, and effect of beliefs that markets without law allow for full employment and that wage laws cause unemployment. That competition alone can bring about good working conditions. The rejection of progressive taxes, and of the right to avail ourselves of the power and resources of the country through organizing public goods. And most importantly, how all of these are maintained by laws that impoverish the powerless and enrich the powerful, and thus are self-perpetuating.

These issues are yet again the problem of our age. Their seeming trajectory towards resolution post WWII, with widespread prosperity and a rising middle class, has been undone. What undid them points to the underlying problem: Immediate causes include the spectacular increase in financialization and unearned rents, the lack of and lack of enforcement of progressive taxes, both in turn largely due to a shift in the public's understanding of these issues. What caused this shift in public understanding is the age old problem—power and the lack thereof.