socialist-economics

  The U.S. and China: A Productive Path Forward The Biden administration, with the overwhelming support of the foreign policy establishment, seems determined to start a new Cold War with China. A new Cold War is likely to be bad news from the standpoint of inequality, world peace, and the climate crisis facing the planet. As with the last Cold War, it is likely to be driven by misunderstandings and deliberate misinformation. With so much at stake, it is important to head off a new Cold War, most importantly by correcting many misconceptions and laying out an alternative more productive path for future relations with China. I will briefly go through the history of the economic relationship between China and the U.S. in the last two decades. Then I will describe the implications for inequality for the path Biden seems to be pursuing. The last part outlines an alternative more cooperative path for relations with China. The Trade Deficit with China: Donald Trump’s Phony War China was a...

via Randy Shannon from  https://heisenbergreport.com/2021/09/28/chinas-power-crunch-steals-macro-limelight/ "Yet another growth shock." That's how Goldman described China's worsening energy crunch on Tuesday. You could also call it the latest blow to macro sentiment at a time of gathering headwinds. In a new note, Hui Shan cut the bank's growth outlook for the world's second largest economy to 0% for Q3. That's a sequential projection. YoY, the Chinese economy likely expanded 4.8% this quarter, Goldman said. Their full-year projection is now 7.8%, down from 8.2% previously. You can make this story as complicated or as simplistic as you like, but the bottom line is that between Beijing's efforts to meet environment targets, pandemic effects and a coal supply shortage, there's not enough power. Factories are being compelled to curtail operations at a time when rampant supply chain disruptions are already upending the global economy. Mandates aimed at...

The Red Caboose has sent you a link to a blog: Blog: Enlighten Radio Post: Talkin Socialism: "WE HAD A DEAL" Link: https://www.enlightenradio.org/2021/09/talkin-socialism-we-had-deal.html -- Powered by Blogger https://www.blogger.com/

Abolish the debt ceiling before it commits austerity again: The GOP used the debt ceiling to force spending cuts in 2011. It can't be allowed again. https://www.epi.org/blog/abolish-the-debt-ceiling-before-it-commits-austerity-again-the-gop-used-the-debt-ceiling-to-force-spending-cuts-in-2011-it-cant-be-allowed-again/ In a political system beset by many  stupid   and   destructive   institutions , the statutory limit on federal debt might be the worst. The debt limit: Measures no coherent economic value. The measure of debt it targets is not inflation-adjusted, would perversely make the debt situation look  worse  if there was a reform to Social Security that closed that program's long-run actuarial imbalance, and ignores trillions of dollars  in assets  held by the federal government. Has no relationship to any economic stressor facing the country—over the past 25 years, as the nominal federal debt  rose  from $5 trillion to $22.7 trillion, debt service payments (required inte...

A provocative and sober take on the future of work in the high tech world. I take a somewhat more optimistic view if policy moves along a socialist road -- but that's a vortex away, as Wm Blake wrote.  Pandemic economic woes continue, but so do deep structural problems, especially the long-term growth in the share of low wage jobs https://economicfront.wordpress.com/2021/09/20/pandemic-economic-woes-continue-but-so-do-deep-structural-problems-especially-the-long-term-growth-in-the-share-of-low-wage-jobs/ Many are understandably  alarmed  about what the September 4 th  termination of several special federal pandemic unemployment insurance programs will mean for millions of workers.  Twenty-five states ended their programs months earlier, with government and business leaders claiming that their termination would spur employment and economic activity.  However, several studies have disproved their claims. One study, based on the experience of 19 of these states,  found  that for every...