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BlogBeyond Tweedledum and Tweedledee Economics
James Galbraith talks about the mechanisms by which obstacles are placed in the way of dissenting and original voices in economics, as well as the failure of most in the forefront of the profession to see the global financial crisis coming (via INET): Galbraith has written about this before; surveying the work of those who [...] -
Working Paper No. 690The Measurement of Time and Income Poverty
Official poverty thresholds are based on the implicit assumption that the household with poverty-level income possesses sufficient time for household production to enable it to reproduce itself as a unit. Several authors have questioned the validity of the assumption and explored alternative methods to account for time deficits in the measurement of poverty. I critically […] -
Working Paper No. 689
Effects of Legal and Unauthorized Immigration on the US Social Security System
Immigration is having an increasingly important effect on the social insurance system in the United States. On the one hand, eligible legal immigrants have the right to eventually receive pension benefits but also rely on other aspects of the social insurance system such as health care, disability, unemployment insurance, and welfare programs, while most of […] -
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The Most Subversive Sign Seen at the “Occupy Wall Street” Protest
(continued at EconoMonitor) -
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Tabula Rasa
“We’ve put this off for too long. We need debt relief and jobs and until we get these two things, I think recovery is impossible”—Randall Wray, quoted in a Reuters article examining the possibility of negotiating massive consumer debt relief. Although household borrowing has been declining, debt burdens remain sky high: (from the latest Levy [...] -
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Flirting with MMT in the Financial Times
Martin Wolf, in the Financial Times last week, “thinks the unthinkable” and inches toward what sounds distinctly like a Modern Money Theory approach: “Alternatively, the government could fund itself from the central bank, directly. Better still, the government could increase its deficits, perhaps by slashing taxes, and taking needed funds from the central bank. Under [...] -
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Ponzi Encore
“It may come as a surprise to some, but the original scheme by Charles Ponzi did not make its money by providing seven decades of benefits to retirees before folding up shop and leaving town with a suitcase full of cash,” writes Benjy Sarlin. In a new One-Pager Greg Hannsgen and Dimitri Papadimitriou display just [...] -
One-Pager No. 13Social Security Data Belie Loopy Claims of a Fraud
Research Scholar Greg Hannsgen and President Dimitri B. Papadimitriou disprove claims made by Social Security skeptics that the program is nothing more than a “Ponzi scheme.” -
One-Pager No. 13
Τα στοιχεία για την κοινωνική ασφάλιση διαψεύδουν τους παλαβούς ισχυρισμούς περί απάτης
Ο ερευνητής Greg Hannsgen και ο πρόεδρος Δημήτρης Β. Παπαδημητρίου διαψεύδουν τους ισχυρισμούς από τους σκεπτικιστές της Κοινωνικής Ασφάλισης ότι το πρόγραμμα δεν είναι τίποτα περισσότερο από ένα «σχέδιο Πόνζι». -
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Wray on the Commodities Bubble and the Coming Crash
“The problem is that we have way too much money chasing way too few good assets. The total amount of financial bets out there is way over $600 trillion around the world. There just aren’t enough good investments to absorb that amount of money. So, what happens is they blow up–one asset after another. Then, [...] -
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Hudson on Privatized Credit Creation
Michael Hudson on the ECB and eurozone national central banks’ restricted abilities to purchase government debt: Their banks have perpetuated the “road to serfdom” myth that a central bank runs the danger of fueling inflation if it creates money – in contrast to commercial banks, which supposedly run no such danger if they create money [...] -
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Euro Toast, Anyone?
(Cross posted from EconoMonitor) Greece’s Finance Minister reportedly said that his nation cannot continue to service its debt and hinted that a fifty percent write-down is likely. Greece’s sovereign debt is 350 billion euros—so losses to holders would be 175 billion euros. That would just be the beginning, however. Nouriel Roubini has argued that the [...]