socialist-economics

  A survey of West Virginia GDP by industrial sectors for 2022, with commentary This is content on the main page.

  via Bloomberg   -- excerpted from "Balance of Power" email from David Westin. Welcome to Balance of Power, bringing you the latest in global politics. If you haven’t yet, sign up  here . Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin have long showcased their bromance on the world stage. Now, they’re embracing a  powerful new friend : Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Pictures of the three leaders laughing during an impromptu huddle today on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in the Chinese city of Tianjin signaled the beginning of a new chapter in regional diplomacy. Putin, Modi and Xi at the SCO summit.  Source: Kyodo News/Getty Images “Exchanging perspectives with President Putin and President Xi during the SCO Summit,” Modi posted on his official X account. For Xi, the optics could  hardly have been better . As US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and foreign-policy swings upend America’s global standing, C...

via Project Syndicate: Aug 8, 2025 DANI RODRIK US President Donald Trump’s reckless, self-destructive tariffs have given Europe, China, and various middle powers an opportunity to make a statement about who they are and what they stand for. With few exceptions, their responses have left much to be desired. CAMBRIDGE – America’s critics have always depicted it as a selfish country that throws its weight around with little regard for others’ well-being. But President Donald Trump’s trade policies have been so misguided, erratic, and self-defeating as to make even the most cartoonish of such descriptions seem flattering. Still, in a twisted way, his trade follies have laid bare other countries’ failures as well, by forcing them to consider what their responses say about their own intentions and capabilities. It is said that one’s true character is revealed in the face of adversity, and the same goes for countries and their political systems. Trump’s frontal assault on the world economy w...

Dean Baker, via Patreon  The stock market rallied big-time on Friday as Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell indicated that the Fed was likely to lower interest rates at its September meeting. In assessing whether a rate cut is appropriate, Powell was looking at the higher inflation caused by the Trump tariffs and trading it off against the signals of a weakening labor market from the monthly jobs reports and other data. The key issue is, as posed by Powell: “The question that matters for monetary policy is whether these price increases are likely to materially raise the risk of an ongoing inflation problem. A reasonable base case is that the effects will be relatively short lived—a one-time shift in the price level. Of course, "one-time" does not mean "all at once." It will continue to take time for tariff increases to work their way through supply chains and distribution networks. Moreover, tariff rates continue to evolve, potentially prolonging the adjustme...

via patreon  I n Donald Trump’s make-believe world prices are falling, the economy is booming, he is bringing peace all around the world, and gas costs less than $2.00 a gallon. But in the real-world inflation is increasing, the economy is stalling, wars are continuing, and gas  costs  more than $3.00 a gallon. Ordinarily, we shouldn’t be bothered too much by the dreams of a 79-year-old man suffering from dementia, but we have little choice but to be bothered when that person is the president of the United States. Trump’s unreality is interfering with the reality for the rest of us in a very big way. One way his hallucinations matter in a big way is his failure to come to grips with the fact that China is now the world’s dominant economy. By the end of this decade, the I.M.F. projects it to be nearly 50 percent larger than the U.S. economy. Source:  International Monetary Fund . There is not much that the U.S. can do about this large and growing disparity. It can and...

Michael Roberts Blogblogging from a marxist economist WAPE 2025: geopolitics, economic models and multi-polarity Last weekend the 18th Congress of the World Association of Political Economy (WAPE) took place in Istanbul, Turkey..  WAPE is a Chinese-run academic economics organisation, linking up with Marxist economists globally. “Even though that might seem like bias, the WAPE forums and journals still provide an important outlet to discuss all the developments in the world capitalist economy from a Marxist perspective. Marxist economists from all over the world are welcome to join WAPE and attend WAPE forums.” (WAPE mission statement).  As you would expect, many of the plenary speeches included economists from China as well as those from ‘the West’ and the ‘Global South’.  I was invited to attend but was unable to do so, so I cannot report on the subjects of the various plenary speeches.  However, I did make a presentation by recorded video (see my You Tube channel)...

  An Introduction to West Virginia Political Economy The charts and remarks below consitute an exploration into West Virginia public and private material, service and farm  production, employment, workforce, compensation, surpluses, taxation and subsidies, population. These are the categories of the state's political economy, since it embraces the various public and private components that are used to structure and measure overall economic performance .  These are also the categories, by industry, that the BEA uses to inform policy advice of legislators and other federal departmetns, as well as the banking and financial services consumers. The data available from  BEA  (Bureau of Economic Analysis) , ranges from 2017-2022.  GDP  West Virginia GDP -- What and how much do we produce?  The underlying story in this graph is twofold:  a) the heavy concentration of West Virginia's gross product value in natural resources and energy -- two markets t...

from the Economist Jun 19th 2025|CHICAGO, NEW YORK AND SAN FRANCISCO THE VIDEO of Brad Lander getting slammed against a wall and arrested by federal immigration agents shocked New Yorkers, who are not easily shocked. On June 17th the mild-mannered city comptroller had been attempting to escort a migrant through a federal building in Manhattan as agents tried to detain the man. “It’s bullshit,” said Kathy Hochul, the Democratic governor of New York, of Mr Lander’s arrest. It came a week before a crowded Democratic primary for New York City mayor, in which the city comptroller is a candidate. The arrest may well help his campaign, but it marked yet another skirmish over immigration with Donald Trump’s administration. It is just the latest escalation in a confrontation with cities and states that did not vote for the president, on a topic where the public supports him most. Mr Trump’s administration has tried to withhold funding from some states whose governors, like Janet Mills of Maine...

 Charts for an intro to WV political economy: Where Do People Work What is the Real Gross National Product for WV  What is the Real GDP per employee per industry? What is the compensation in wages and salaries What is the surplus (profits plus interest)

Mercantilism Isn’t All Bad, but Trump’s Version Is the Worst King George, or Don Corleone Dani Rodrik  /  May 7, 2025 at 9:58 AM Donald Trump's chaotic, indiscriminate trade policies do little to expand critical, strategic investments in the United States, and are riddled with cronyism. His brand of mercantilism embodies all its worst defects, with none of the benefits that countries have unlocked by getting their trade policies right. CAMBRIDGE – When economists celebrate the 250th anniversary of the publication of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations next year, US President Donald Trump’s mercantilism will constitute an incongruous backdrop. After all, Trump’s obsession with bilateral trade balances, glorification of import tariffs, and zero-sum approach to international trade has revived – in defiance of Smith’s teachings – the worst mercantilist practices. Economists are right to denigrate Trump’s trade policies. Other countries’ unfair trade practices are not the main rea...