Wall Street analysts tell us that Amazon’s $14 billion buyout of Whole Foods isn’t only a win-win for both of them, but also for consumers, for Amazon intends to lower the organic grocer’s prices. Continue reading
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Category Archives: Economy
Our obsolescent economy
A friend of mine from India tells a story about driving an old Volkswagen beetle from California to Virginia during his first year in the United States. In a freak ice storm in Texas he skidded off the road, leaving his car with a cracked windshield and badly dented doors and fenders. When he reached Virginia he took the car to a body shop for a repair estimate. The proprietor took one look at it and said, “it’s totaled.” My Indian friend was bewildered: “How can it be totaled? I just drove it from Texas!” Continue reading
Sovereign debt jubilee, Japanese-style
Let’s face it. There is no way the US government is ever going to pay back a $20 trillion federal debt. The taxpayers will just continue to pay interest on it, year after year. Continue reading
Democracy is a front for central bank rule
Several years ago when the Federal Reserve had its Fed funds rate at zero to 25 basis points (one-quarter of one percent—0.25%), there was a great deal of talk, somehow presented as urgent, whether the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates. Continue reading
Dear Mr. President, be careful what you wish for: higher interest rates will kill the recovery
Responding to earlier presidential pressure, the Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates this week for the third time since November, from a fed funds target of 1% to 1.25%. But as noted in The Guardian in a March 2017 article, titled “Trump Is Set to Win the Battle on Interest Rates, but US Economy Will Pay the Price”: “An increase in the base rate, however small, will tighten the screw on younger voters and some of the poorest communities who voted for him and rely on credit to get by. Continue reading
Without Glass-Steagall America will fail
For 66 years the Glass-Steagall Act reduced the risks in the banking system. Eight years after the act was repealed, the banking system blew up, threatening the international economy. US taxpayers were forced to come up with $750 billion dollars, a sum much larger than the Pentagon’s budget, in order to bail out the banks. This huge sum was insufficient to do the job. The Federal Reserve had to step in and expand its balance sheet by $4 trillion in order to protect the solvency of banks declared “too big to fail.” Continue reading
Donald Trump & Andrew Cuomo are brothers in reactor disaster
Donald Trump and New York governor Andrew Cuomo have joined forces in destroying our economy and environment. Continue reading
If China can fund infrastructure with its own credit, so can we
May 15–19 has been designated “National Infrastructure Week” by the US Chambers of Commerce, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), and over 150 affiliates. Their message: “It’s time to rebuild.” Ever since ASCE began issuing its “National Infrastructure Report Card” in 1998, the nation has gotten a dismal grade of D or D+. In the meantime, the estimated cost of fixing its infrastructure has gone up from $1.3 trillion to $4.6 trillion. Continue reading
Deep State, shallow politics, dumb economics
Evidence that this home of the master race of self-chosen people was the world’s greatest democracy even before Trump
In 1965, the USA had 780,000 people in prison, jail, on parole or on probation. Continue reading
Trump’s banksters and the rollback of Dodd-Frank
Donald Trump has ordered a rollback of regulations over Wall Street, including the Dodd-Frank Act, passed in 2010 to prevent another too-big-to-fail banking crisis. Continue reading
The truth about Trumponomics
When Donald Trump spoke at Boeing’s factory in North Charleston, South Carolina—unveiling Boeing’s new 787 “Dreamliner”—he congratulated Boeing for building the plane “right here in the great state of South Carolina.“ Continue reading
Trump administration considering ‘back-door way’ to cut Social Security
‘If Trump proposes this Trojan horse, it would be the newest shot in the ongoing Republican war against Social Security'
President Donald Trump, who campaigned on a promise not to cut Social Security, is reportedly considering a plan to eliminate much of the payroll tax that funds the critical safety net program. Continue reading
What a state-owned bank can do for New Jersey
Phil Murphy, the leading Democratic candidate for governor of New Jersey, has made a state-owned bank a centerpiece of his campaign. He says the New Jersey bank would “take money out of Wall Street and put it to work for New Jersey—creating jobs and growing the economy [by] using state deposits to finance local investments . . . and . . . support billions of dollars of critical investments in infrastructure, small businesses, and student loans—saving our residents money and returning all profits to the taxpayers.” Continue reading
More fake news From Washington—this time it is about employment
The US government continues to lie about everything, not just Russia, Syria, Iran, and China. The US government is incapable of telling the truth about something as straightforward as employment. According to the government, March produced only 98,000 new payroll jobs, an insufficient amount to reduce unemployment, but the unemployment rate fell from 4.7 to 4.5 percent. Continue reading
Freedom Rider: Liberals expose themselves
George W. Bush vowed not to criticize Barack Obama. “He deserves my silence.” He added for good measure, “I love my country more than I love politics. I think it is essential that he be helped in office.” If anyone needed additional proof that Obama was a servant of the ruling classes Bush certainly provided it. Continue reading
Why Trumponomics fails
When Donald Trump gave a speech last Friday at Boeing’s factory in North Charleston, South Carolina—unveiling Boeing’s new 787 “Dreamliner”—he congratulated Boeing for building the plane “right here” in South Carolina. Continue reading
How to cut infrastructure costs in half
Americans could save $1 trillion over 10 years by financing infrastructure through publicly-owned banks like the one that has long been operating in North Dakota.
President Donald Trump has promised to rebuild America’s airports, bridges, tunnels, roads and other infrastructure, something both Democrats and Republicans agree should be done. The country needs a full $3 trillion in infrastructure over the next decade. Continue reading
Globalist leaders ensure North American integration mechanisms remain in place
As Donald Trump prepares to become U.S. president on Jan. 20, the future of NAFTA is in doubt. He has promised to either renegotiate or withdraw from the trade agreement. Despite the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, there are still many different existing North American integration mechanisms that remain in place. Continue reading
The Italian banking crisis: No free lunch—or is there?
On December 4, 2016, Italian voters rejected a referendum to amend their constitution to give the government more power, and the Italian prime minister resigned. The resulting chaos has pushed Italy’s already-troubled banks into bankruptcy. Continue reading
Faux populist Trump wages all-out war on American workers
President-elect Donald Trump, a supposedly populist candidate who rose to power on promises made to frustrated American workers, has now seemingly launched what Politico is describing as an outright “war on unions.” Continue reading
Dismal jobs report
The presstitute media delivered the false news, not from Russian propaganda websites such as the Washington Post accuses this one of being, but from Obama’s US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The false news is that the collapsing economy continues to boom with 178,000 new jobs in November and a further fall in the rate of unemployment to 4.6%. Continue reading
‘We’ll look at everything’: More thoughts on Trump’s $1 trillion infrastructure plan
The Trump agenda, it seems, is not set in stone. The president-elect has a range of advisors with as many ideas. Steven Mnuchin, his nominee for Treasury secretary, said in November that “we’ll take a look at everything,” even the possibility of extending the maturity of the federal debt with 50-year or 100-year bonds to take advantage of unusually low interest rates. Continue reading
Trump’s $1 trillion infrastructure plan
Lincoln had a bolder solution
In Donald Trump’s victory speech after the presidential election, he vowed, “We are going to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals. We’re going to rebuild our infrastructure, which will become, by the way, second to none. And we will put millions of our people to work as we rebuild it.” Continue reading
Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA): Canada and the EU
Most interesting watching the progress of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the EU through the various opaque backroom ministrations this past week. Continue reading
Deficit hysteria invades the presidential campaign
The smog of decades-old fiscal wars crept into the final debate—and the folks who want to cut Social Security managed to sneak in.
Whether you think Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton prevailed in last week’s debate—Clinton by sounding like an adult, Trump by clenching his jaw to keep from foaming at the mouth—one undisputed winner was an entity called the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. That awkward mouthful adorns a letterhead think tank that moderator Chris Wallace cited twice as an authority on the purportedly world-shattering dangers of government overspending. Continue reading
Prop. 51 versus a state-owned bank: How California can save $10 billion on a $9 billion loan
School districts are notoriously short of funding—so short that some California districts have succumbed to Capital Appreciation Bonds that will cost taxpayers as much is 10 to 15 times principal by the time they are paid off. By comparison, California’s Prop. 51, the school bond proposal currently on the ballot, looks like a good deal. It would allow the state to borrow an additional $9 billion for educational purposes by selling general obligation bonds to investors at an assumed interest rate of 5%, with the bonds issued over a five-year period and repaid over 30 years. $9 billion × 5% × 35 equals $15.75 billion in interest—nearly twice principal, but not too bad compared to the Capital Appreciation Bond figures. Continue reading
Central Bank Digital Currencies: A revolution in banking?
Several central banks, including the Bank of England, the People’s Bank of China, the Bank of Canada and the Federal Reserve, are exploring the concept of issuing their own digital currencies, using the blockchain technology developed for Bitcoin. Skeptical commentators suspect that their primary goal is to eliminate cash, setting us up for negative interest rates (we pay the bank to hold our deposits rather than the reverse). Continue reading
How long can economic reality be ignored?
Trump and Hitlery have come out with the obligatory “economic plans.” Neither them nor their advisors, have any idea about what really needs to be done, but this is of no concern to the media. Continue reading
Another phony jobs report
As John Williams has made clear, the monthly payroll jobs number consists mainly of an add-on factor of 200,000 jobs. These jobs are a product of the assumption in the Birth-Death Model that new business ventures create more unreported new jobs than the unreported job losses from business failures. If we subtract out this made-up number, July saw a gain of 55,000 jobs, not enough to keep up with population growth. Even the 55,000 figure is overstated, according to John Williams’ report: “The gimmicked, headline payroll gain of 255,000 more realistically should have come in below zero, net of built-in upside biases.” Continue reading
Can Jill carry Bernie’s baton?
A look at the Green candidate’s radical funding solution
Bernie Sanders supporters are flocking to Jill Stein, the presumptive Green Party presidential candidate, with donations to her campaign exploding nearly 1000% after he endorsed Hillary Clinton. Stein salutes Sanders for the progressive populist movement he began and says it is up to her to carry the baton. Can she do it? Critics say her radical policies will not hold up to scrutiny. But supporters say they are just the medicine the economy needs. Continue reading
Japan’s “helicopter money” play: Road to hyperinflation or cure for debt deflation?
Fifteen years after embarking on its largely ineffective quantitative easing program, Japan appears poised to try the form recommended by Ben Bernanke in his notorious “helicopter money” speech in 2002. The Japanese test case could finally resolve a longstanding dispute between monetarists and money reformers over the economic effects of government-issued money. Continue reading
Don’t trust business with education
Greasy politicians use education funds to enrich corporations—and themselves.
Posted on July 21, 2017 by Jim Hightower
Betsy DeVos and her husband Dick are lucky: They inherited a big chunk of the multi-billion-dollar fortune that Dick’s dad Richard amassed through his shady Amway corporation. But what they’ve done with their Amway money is certainly not the American Way. Continue reading →