socialist-economics

Here's What Economists Are Saying About China's New 5-Year Plan by Enda Curran Economists zeroed in on China's focus on quality economic growth and its technology ambitions in the 14th five-year plan released Thursday. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-30/here-s-what-economists-are-saying-about-china-s-new-5-year-plan?sref=woWS9Szx Economists zeroed in on China's focus on quality economic growth and its technology ambitions in the  14th five-year plan  released Thursday. A communique released after a four-day meeting of the Communist Party's Central Committee gave a broad outline of the plan as well as sketching out a vision for the economy as far as 2035. Five Year Plans China's economy has experienced much upheaval since the first plan started in 1953 Source: Data compiled by Bloomberg Here's a look at what economists are saying about the plan: Quality Growth The communique implied an aggressive path of economic expansion without mentioning t...

Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro Plot to Get Brazilians Killed http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/beat_the_press/~3/MuLxrP8ws1M/ It's not normal for a president of the United States to make plans with the president of an allied country, that is likely to get tens of thousands of people in that country killed. But we're not talking about ordinary presidents; we're talking about Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro. The goal of the Trump-Bolsonaro plot was to keep Brazil from getting access to a vaccine developed in China. China is apparently somewhat ahead of the United States in developing an effective vaccine. While the pharmaceutical companies in the United States have approached a vaccine by developing a new RNA method, the leading Chinese companies have pursued an old-fashioned dead virus approach. This allowed these companies to  move more quickly  with their testing and get to the final Phase 3 stage of clinical trials before the U.S. companies. They also went the route of pick...

It appears Xi Jinping has won comrade Michael over.  A devoted defender of Marx's theory of value, I admit shunning him, perhaps more often than I  should, for what sometimes appears as an intellectual fetish combined with screwball politics. But -- he is a good economist and a good researcher, too.  He does a great job below distinguishing between two methods of defining and calculating GDP -- which boils down to whether China's GDP is 10 or 8% per annum -- in either case orders of magnitude better than any other large or medium economy. The distinctions include what basket of goods to include in what is measured, and what weights to assign to different goods in the basket to be measured: Productive vs not productive, service vs mfg, public vs private, intangible vs tangible, etc. China's growth challenge https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2020/10/28/chinas-growth-challenge/  Michael Roberts This week the 5 th  plenum of the Chinese Communist Party central committee is...

https://twitter.com/i/status/1321236661309755393 -- John Case Harpers Ferry, WV Enlighten Radio Socialist Economics Facebook

Facebook's Tech Chief: How We Built It and Where We're Going http://feeds.harvardbusiness.org/~r/harvardbusiness/~3/FB7F681WFv8/facebooks-tech-chief-how-we-built-it-and-where-were-going I would recommend this as a must listen for socialists. A clearly brilliant engineer, CTO of Facebook, is in charge of teaching (or being taught by) Facebook-scaled AI software how to recognize "hate speech" in 100 languages and among 2.1 billion users. That's just one item in a rich discussion. Another is the potential shift in human experience from enhanced virtual reality platforms that are in advanced research stages. At the end, however, a very big question is left unanswered. Facebook may be considered to be under public pressure due to its dominance for this time -- but it's still an ad-driven private biz for profit, assuming the role of global censor. If there must be global censors, I prefer elected governments to giant corporations.     -- via my feedly newsfeed

Black, Hispanic, and young workers have been left behind by policymakers, but will they vote? https://www.epi.org/blog/black-hispanic-and-young-workers-have-been-left-behind-by-policymakers-but-will-they-vote/ EPI research finds that  Black ,  Hispanic , and  young workers  are among those hit hardest by the COVID-19 recession—facing unemployment rates far beyond what white workers and older workers are facing. The resulting economic challenges—including  food insecurity  and the  threat of eviction , among  others —will compound if additional relief doesn't come soon. In addition to economic threats, the health threats of the coronavirus pandemic have affected  communities of color  far worse than white communities. Young adults and Black and Hispanic citizens have also been historically underrepresented at the polls, for a variety of reasons that we explore below. But could that change in 2020? Historical voting trends among the Black, Hispanic, and young adult populations Black ...

Health Insurance Coverage Losses Since 2016 Widespread https://www.cbpp.org/blog/health-insurance-coverage-losses-since-2016-widespread  -- via my feedly newsfeed The number and share of Americans without health insurance coverage rose for the third straight year in 2019, recent  American Community Survey (ACS)  data show, despite three years of strong economic growth and falling unemployment. This follows six straight years of health coverage gains, with the uninsured rate falling from 15.5 percent in 2010 to a historic low of 8.6 percent in 2016 as the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) major coverage expansions took effect. Some 9.2 percent of Americans — 29.6 million people — were uninsured in 2019, compared to 8.9 percent (28.6 million) in 2018. While uninsured rates remain far below pre-ACA levels, coverage gains have eroded for nearly every demographic group for which the Census Bureau collects health coverage data (see figure). The uninsured rate has risen since 2016 for Americans...