Category: Economic Theory
The analysis published under this category are as follows.Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Why a Corporate Tax Cut Won’t Boost Economic Growth / Economics / Economic Theory
BY PATRICK WATSON : The House and Senate are considering tax legislation that will add $1.5 trillion to annual deficits over the next 10 years, according to their own numbers.
This is okay, we're told, because the tax cuts will stoke economic growth, delivering added tax revenue that offsets the rate reductions.
Note the bigger point here.
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Thursday, September 28, 2017
The Koyaanisqatsi Economy / Economics / Economic Theory
The film Koyaanisqatsi was released in 1982. The title means ‘life out of balance’ in the language of the Hopi, a Native American tribe who live(d) mainly in what is now north-east Arizona. It is directed by Godfrey Reggio with music by Philip Glass and cinematography by Ron Fricke. There are no actors, and no dialogue. Philip Glass’s music underlies a series of film fragments that contrast the beauty of American nature with the noise and pollution mankind has added to it. Wikipedia:
Read full article... Read full article...The film consists primarily of slow motion and time-lapse footage of cities and many natural landscapes across the United States. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and music. Reggio explained the lack of dialogue by stating “it’s not for lack of love of the language that these films have no words. It’s because, from my point of view, our language is in a state of vast humiliation. It no longer describes the world in which we live.”
Monday, July 17, 2017
Too Much Capital / Stock-Markets / Economic Theory
Henri Schneider writes: Truisms and banalities: Investors must be able to assess the productivity of their capital. This is done by comparing returns to interest rates. But what, if all interest rates are rigged? What if they are artificially lower than they should be? Then, not only too much capital is invested, but it is invested in the wrong places. Even more pressing: what if there is simply too much capital in the financial system?
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Monday, July 17, 2017
Why Jobs Growth No Longer Induces Wage Growth in America / Economics / Economic Theory
Or The Eclipse of the Phillips Curve in AmericaWhile the Fed’s continued tightening may suppress growth in emerging economies, US labor market may not be as strong as recent reports suggest.
US experienced strong job growth in June, when the economy created 222,000 net new jobs, which exceeded analyst expectations. At the Federal Reserve, the jobs report boosted confidence US economy is on the track for new rate hikes in the fall.
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Thursday, February 09, 2017
Retroeconomics – Global Challenge for Economic Development / Economics / Economic Theory
Vladimer Papava writes: In many and mostly poor countries, their economies have been using obsolete technologies. As a result, all of these countries do not have a real chance to be successful in any long-term economic growth. The usage of obsolete technologies by any company can create the illusion that this or that business is prosperous. At the level of international competition, however, it is obvious that these types of companies do not have any chance for success.
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Monday, February 06, 2017
Why the Fed Gets Economics Wrong / Economics / Economic Theory
Economics (in general) is populated at its core by a lot of bad ideas. And these bad ideas have come to be accepted as the correct interpretation of how the economy functions and thus have become the basis for economic policy. This news shouldn’t come as a shock since I’ve written about this many times over the years in Thoughts from the Frontline.
Economics is an enormously useful tool for those of us who are trying to understand business and investments and government policy. But to paraphrase Dirty Harry, “An economist has to know his limitations.”
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Sunday, January 08, 2017
In a Lawless World, Rules STILL Matter / Economics / Economic Theory
While economics is a science and should be treated as such, economic forecasting is both a science and an art at the same time. However, anyone can forecast. Just like anyone can forecast the weather. To do so accurately and furthermore to do so frequently is a true talent. We think of it along the lines of the ability to hit a major league fastball; a gift granted to maybe 1 in 500 or a thousand babies each year. Then add to that the ability to hit a major league fastball for an average of .300 over an entire career and we’re talking a few babies in an entire generation.
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Wednesday, November 23, 2016
Krugman's Aliens Have Arrived - They Are Called "Trumponomists" / Economics / Economic Theory
Gordon T Long, Co-Founder of MATASII.com sat down with John Rubino to get his views on what the new Trump Administration and its "Trumponomics" policies will mean to the markets and investment strategies in 2017. Here are a few of John's current views on some of the Key Economic headwinds facing "Trumponomics":
A NEW ELECTORAL CLASS
The reason anti-establish politicians like Trump are gaining popularity according to John is because people, more and more, are feeling "the big systems no longer works for the people anymore!"
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Wednesday, November 16, 2016
What Exactly is True Capitalism? / Economics / Economic Theory
We’ll begin with this truth: We cannot snap our fingers and have “wants” immediately transformed into “satisfactions.” We are born having to struggle to survive. We must take atomic elements, which are provided gratuitously by nature, and transform them into the goods and services that give us satisfaction. Everything used to build an Italian sports car is provided by nature, but not in a form that can be used directly without modifications. The raw material must be combined by our labor and know-how. Wants require efforts to obtain satisfaction. Man is constantly striving to reduce these painful efforts that consume so much of his energy and time. Unfortunately, the history of mankind has been one of pillage: A plan for less efforts. It is far easier to steal a sack of corn than take the effort to grow it.
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Wednesday, October 19, 2016
The Limits of Empirical Economics / Economics / Economic Theory
Two separate economic developments over the last 100 years have caused macroeconomics to regress instead of progress. The first is the Keynesian, or more accurately Malthusian, notion of aggregate demand. The second is Friedman’s positive empiricism emphasising the importance of empirical verification of economic theory.
According to positive empiricism, adherence to economic facts is the only way to validate economic theories.
Sunday, October 16, 2016
End of Economic Growth Sparks Wide Discontent / Economics / Economic Theory
Former British diplomat and MI6 ‘ranking figure’ Alastair Crooke quotes my September 26 article “Why There is Trump” so extensively in this article for Consortium News that I thought I might as well post the whole thing here at the Automatic Earth too. The other sources he also quotes -John Gray, Stephen Hadley among them- help to put my points in a solid perspective, which is nice to see. I can only hope that this will open more people’s eyes to the fact that in the end of growth and centralization, we are witnessing the “most important global development in decades.”
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Monday, September 19, 2016
Fascist Business Model: Reich Economics / Economics / Economic Theory
The Fascist Business Model incorporates all the worse elements of Keynesian economics, a broken fallacious school of thought. The model also integrates a vast system of economic heresy, put forth as public address dogma. All their messages are wrong. They are instead aligned with support of the power structure where big banks conduct self-dealing and print money for themselves.
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Sunday, September 18, 2016
American Economics / Economics / Economic Theory
Over the years, we have written multiple times about the system of Keynesian economics, its dysfunction, and the fact that it is a pure lie. This has all been well-documented from studies, observations, right down to remarks made by Keynes himself regarding the long-term viability of his new faux economics.
However, from Keynesian economics, there has morphed another type of economics. A more ignorant and destructive type of scarce resource allocation – which is what economics really is after all – and this type is no respecter of persons, intellect, position, or influence. We could easily call it the economics of entitlement, but that would be misleading because when most think of entitlements, they think about Social Security, Medicare, and other government programs. No, that’s not where the sense of American (and global) entitlement ends. It ends with the average working stiff who is paying 20% on a $40,000 / 7 -year truck loan with a balloon payment because his buddies told him he wasn’t cool if he didn’t have such a truck. There are zillions of other such examples of financial stupidity, however, nobody is bothering to tell these folks that they’re committing financial suicide. The banks certainly aren’t going to tell them. The government? Talk about the kettle and the pot. Or maybe there is too much legal pot. We certainly can’t legislate common sense, but we sure try to legislate away the consequences of foolish behavior.
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Friday, September 09, 2016
Money and The Rats of NIHM / Economics / Economic Theory
“When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion; when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing; when you see money flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors; when you see that men get richer by graft
and pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you; when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice you may know that your society is doomed.”– Ayn Rand
Saturday, September 03, 2016
John Maynard Keynes’ “General Theory” Eighty Years Later / Economics / Economic Theory
To the economic and political detriment of the Western world and those economies beyond which have adopted its precepts, 2016 marks the eightieth anniversary of the publication of one of, if not, the most influential economics books ever penned, John Maynard Keynes’ The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. Sadly, even to this day, despite its thorough refutation by lights such as Henry Hazlitt and other eminent scholars, The General Theory, which spawned “Keynesianism” and its later variants, remains supreme in academics, financial markets, and public policy.
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Wednesday, August 24, 2016
Proof Positive the Economic Recovery Is a Myth / Economics / Economic Theory
For years, I’ve been warning that all claims of economic “recovery” in the US are complete fiction.
We now have definitive proof in the form of tax receipts.
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Friday, August 19, 2016
Big Policies, Bigger Failures / Economics / Economic Theory
Economics is far simpler than most in academics or government would have you believe. To make accurate predictions all you really need is an honest appreciation of the self-interest that is at the heart of free market transactions and an ability to understand how regulations that attempt to "correct" these realities don't work. This is certainly the case with the completely predictable slow-motion train wrecks that are the signature U.S. domestic policy experiments of the last eight years: Obamacare and Federal Reserve stimulus. From the start, I issued countless commentaries on why both would fail spectacularly. The jury has started to come back on Obamacare, and the results are a disaster. And while the verdict on the Fed's policies has yet to arrive in similarly stark terms, I believe that its failure is just as certain.
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Friday, August 12, 2016
How the Frankfurt School Changed American Culture / Economics / Economic Theory
Dear Parade-Goer,
How many times have you heard someone lament how much the world has changed from the good old days? You know, the simpler pre-PC period when the world operated according to fairly predictable principles.
But then we woke one day in a world with every bastion of what some might called normalcy under attack. Institutions that 100 years ago appeared unassailable—marriage, for example—are increasingly seen as antiquated. Even the idea of a national character is viewed as wrong-minded and, in the successful societies of the West, as exclusionary and even racist.
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Monday, June 13, 2016
Keynesian Economics Versus Austrian Economics - Video / Economics / Economic Theory
hi it's monday jun 13 2016
home of alternative economics and contrarian views
this morning I want to talk about the difference between the cannes in school
of economics and the Austrian School of Economics because you might be thinking
what is alternative economics and in my view that's what alternative economics
is today is the Austrian School of Economics Austrian School of Economics
is based on the studies of Austrian scholars from the 19th century and it
was followed through by economist's like ludwig von mises Africa
friedrich hayek Murray Rothbard from the US and yeah that's the are strange
school that the proponents of the Austrian school usually while not
usually the proposer ask our school argue that economics is not a science
economics is based on human action and of course human action is not predictable
Tuesday, May 03, 2016
Just Look to the Middle-Class for Proof of Trickle-Down Economics / Economics / Economic Theory
Politicians and economists get many things wrong, but right now, the one thing that really gets up my… let’s keep this clean and just say, nose… is how clueless they are about “trickle-down economics.”
Republicans believe it. (They just don’t realize how long it takes and that it isn’t happening yet from the information revolution.)