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Debt: Where did it come from? (chart of the day)
from David Ruccio As the BBC explains, There was a big build-up of debts in Spain and Italy before 2008, but it had nothing to do with governments. Instead it was the private sector – companies and...
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Spain’s government and European authorities bent on dismantling welfare state
from Mark Weisbrot MADRID — I have argued for some time now that the recurring crisis in the eurozone is not driven by financial markets’ demands for austerity in a time of recession – as is commonly...
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Technology or Power?
from John Schmitt Within the economics profession, the standard explanation for rising inequality over the last three decades is that we have been experiencing a long-term shortage of college-educated...
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Comparisons of income distribution in the USA in 2007 and England in the 17th...
from Edward Fullbrook The following two charts from http://www.the-crises.com/ compre the distribution of income in the United States in 2007 and England in the seventeenth century. For more...
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Why won’t the Eurozone disintegrate?
from Deniz Kellecioglu About a year ago, while having coffee with friends in Addis Ababa, I postulated that the Eurozone would break up, probably by May, but certainly by September. Of course, I was...
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Oh Boy: Over the Cliff We Go?
from Peter Radford No one knows exactly what went on, but this evening’s extraordinary melt down within the House Republican caucus is surely a historical moment. Here’s the story: Speaker Boehner has...
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Timothy Geithner: modern day Metternich
from Dean Baker Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s departure from the Obama Administration invites comparisons with Klemens von Metternich. Metternich was the foreign minister of the Austrian Empire...
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Aaron Swartz, financial fraud, and the Justice Department
from Dean Baker Many people have been asking about the Justice Department’s priorities in the wake of the suicide of computer whiz and political activist Aaron Swartz. As has been widely reported, the...
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US federal spending facts (2 graphs)
from Peter Radford Like many people I am perplexed by claims that federal spending has ‘exploded’ on Obama’s watch. The claim is generally made by someone on the right of center in politics and is...
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Graph of the 2nd American Revolution
from David Ruccio As Dylan Matthews explains, Until the 1970s, the bottom 90 percent had actually seen its income grow more than any other income group. The income gap was shrinking. But the ultra-rich...
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Business schools and inequailty
from Peter Radford You may not be aware of the article that has created quite a storm on the New York Times website. It is about inequality at Harvard Business School and the insidious consequences of...
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The End Is Nigh!
from Peter Radford The end, that is, of Reaganism. The Republicans have shut down government because no one is taking their demand that health care reform is abandoned seriously. In a nutshell the...
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Shutting down the government over health care
from Dean Baker Much of the media, and certainly the Democrats, have been unfair to the Republicans in Congress in characterizing their decision to shut down the government as “outrageous,” “crazy,” or...
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Who cares about default?
from Peter Radford In this fast moving and ridiculously puerile crisis of ours we are being treated to an equally fast paced run-through of right wing fantasy. As each layer of their beliefs is peeled...
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Smart people, stupid people, and budget politics
from Dean Baker Doing policy work in Washington, I tend to be around people who are highly educated and think of themselves as very intelligent. Many of them think of ordinary Americans as being stupid...
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With debt ceiling lifted, will America move to non-fiction on economic issues?
from Mark Weisbrot The rest of the world must have been fascinated at the spectacle of the U.S. government shutdown and threatened default on our public debt. Here is a country that not only has no...
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Handbag economics: The ideology of austerity
from Mary Mellor Handbag economics is the common sense of our age. Public sectors are like households, they must live within their means, balance their books, cut their coat according to their cloth....
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Economic and social policy and the problems of the Eurozone and European...
Mark Weisbrot The latest (February) issue of Harpers’ Magazine has an interesting discussion of Europe and the eurozone, “How Germany Reconquered Europe: the Euro and its Discontents.” Some of the big...
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Plutonomy and its 12-point manifesto
from Edward Fullbrook This appeared on my screen last night. The Plutonomist Manifesto Because democracy is our worst enemy, we must work to convert every...
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Clockwork Justice?
from Peter Radford One of the central beliefs held by people who advocate a market based worldview is that, somehow, markets are apolitical, they are antiseptic, they are objective. This is nonsense....
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