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European Nightmare
Europe is experiencing a growing economic crisis. Tragically, the recent meeting of the 27 European Union nations in Brussels produced an agreement, which if ratified, is bound to make things worse....
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Another Failure For The Best And The Brightest
The Federal Reserve Bank recently released 1,197 pages of transcripts of its 2006 closed door meetings. As the Wall Street Journal comments: “The transcripts paint the most detailed picture yet of how...
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Too Big to Fail Has Gotten Bigger
Too big to fail—that was the common explanation voiced at the start of the Great Recession for why the Federal Reserve had no choice but to channel trillions of dollars into the coffers of our leading...
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Confronting Savage Growth
The media is full of stories about the ever more heated debate over the best way to reignite growth: austerity or deficit spending. Paul Krugman, a leading proponent of the deficit spending side,...
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Housing Market Blues
Economic recoveries often depend on the state of the housing market. While an April increase in housing prices has led many analysts to talk of a housing recovery, U.S. home values still remain...
View ArticleProfits and Crime
The big banks are still committing crimes at our expense. And they will continue to do so as along as they face no real punishment. It turns out that a number of major banks successfully conspired to...
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Health Care And Profits
The Supreme Court has ruled favorably on the legality of the Affordable Care Act. Actually, despite its name, the Act has more to do with extending and attempting to improve private health insurance...
View ArticleFree Trade As A Coroporate Project
I was recently interviewed by David Delk on his Populist Dialogue cable TV program. I shared my criticism of free trade as a corporate project, looking in particular at the Transpacific Partnership...
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The Growth Of Monopoly Power
Market advocates have had their way for years now—one of the consequences has been the growing dominance of industry after industry by a select few powerful corporations. In short, unchecked...
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Corporations And The General Welfare
There is general agreement that the economy is not growing fast enough to boost employment. The question: What to do about it? The response, at all levels of government, seems to be: increase...
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Stagnation and Financialization
The dominant firms in the U.S. and other major capitalist counties are happily making profits. They just aren’t interested in investing them in new plant and equipment. Rather they prefer to use...
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Tax Tricks And Globalization
Globalization offers companies many ways to boost profits at the public expense. A case in point: they can use differences in national tax laws to slash their taxes. Google, Apple, and Microsoft are...
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Job Creators No More
Corporate profits as a share of GDP are way up. This is supposed to be good for all of us—higher profits, we are told, means greater investment and job creation. Unfortunately, this is not what is...
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The Way Forward
Floyd Norris, writing in the New York Times, summarizes key economic trends as follows: Corporate profits are at their highest level in at least 85 years. Employee compensation is at the lowest level...
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The Student Debt Squeeze
Student debt is a major and growing problem for young people, their families, and our economy. Despite the fact that everyone knows this, it keeps getting worse. According to the Wall Street Journal,...
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The No-Raise Expansion
Our current economic expansion is now past the five year mark and the gains for most working people are hard to find. Media attention has largely focused on the weak record of job creation. Less...
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Victory in Greece
Syriza won the Greek election and its leader, Alexis Tsipras, is now prime minister—the Greek people showed bravery and intelligence and we should be studying as well as supporting the efforts of...
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Greece Versus The Troika
“Reports From The Economic Front” is moving. For a short time it will appear at both its current location and future home. Still working on the email subscription function. The Greek drama continues...
View ArticleA Test Of Power in Brussels
“Reports From The Economic Front” is moving. For a short time it will appear at both its current location and future home. There is a lot to learn from the standoff in Brussels between Syriza and the...
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Victory: Greece Over The Troika
“Reports From The Economic Front” will soon be moving to its future home. It seems certain that the political economy textbooks of the future will include a chapter on the experience of Greece in 2015....
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