Institute for New Economic Thinking has the article China and the Supply Chain: A Comment on the June 2021 White House Review By James K. Galbraith.
Contrary to rhetoric from Democrats and Republicans, the U.S. has an economic interest in trade and peace with China.
A very calm and even handed analysis of the situation. It would do a world of good if more people in the USA understood this.
The Blockchain Debate Podcast has the episode on Central Bank Digital Currency.
Motion: The US urgently needs to catch up on Central Bank Digital Currency (Robert Hockett vs. Lawrence White)Motion: The US urgently needs to catch up on Central Bank Digital Currency (Robert Hockett vs. Lawrence White)
Good discussion of central bank digital currency issues. Larry White kept talking about the loanable funds model of private bank lending before being challenged by how private bank lending is currently conducted.
I think the discussion lends credibility to my idea of saying that private banks create promises of money compared to the central bank creating actual money. I think that is less confusing than talking about exogenous money and endogenous money or real bills. I am not proposing any new theory, just some change in terminology.
Marketwatch has the article After China causes bitcoin to crater, threat of new U.S. regulations loom over crypto market, experts say.
The world’s most popular cryptocurrencies took it on the chin Monday after the Chinese government continued its regulatory crackdown on bitcoin miners and companies that provide payment services for crypto-related transactions.
Could some sense be returning to the field of cryptocurrencies?
VMware has posted the article Cybercrime is everywhere and citizens are caught in the crossfire.
Ransomware attacks on U.S. critical infrastructure are headlining the nightly news. Within the past month, an attack on the U.S. fuel company Colonial Pipeline by ransomware group DarkSide caused gas shortages along the East Coast and a ransomware attack on the world’s largest meat processor JBS by cybercriminal gang REvil underscored a dire threat to the global food supply chain. The impact of cybercrime is being felt in our physical world and citizens are caught in the crosshairs of these attacks.
This is a little more information from a source that I trust somewhat. They name two particular criminal organizations, DarkSide and REvil, that I intend to research to see if I can find the connection to any country that is enabling them. I have asked VMware if they have any countries in mind that are enabling these two bad actors.
According to the Wikipedia article DarkSide (hacking group), the article suspects Russia, but does not claim to have proof. An opinion I have not seen in the oligarchs’ news mafia, not that I have been looking for an objective report.
The podcast The Realignment has the episode Dr. Eric Weinstein: What Happens Now?.
Dr. Eric Weinstein, host of “The Portal” podcast and managing director at Thiel Capital, makes his third Realignment appearance to discuss where Marshall and Saagar should take The Realignment and Breaking Points, returning heterodox viewpoints to institutions, and why and how those who’ve tried to do so have failed so far.
This is deep and thought provoking.
Naked Capitalism has the article Biden Taps Lina Khan to Chair the FTC.
Khan, a Columbia University law professor, is a noted Big Tech critic. While still a student at Yale Law School, she penned an important article for the Yale Law Journal,
This Note argues that the current framework in antitrust – specifically its pegging competition to “consumer welfare,” defined as short-term price effects – is unequipped to capture the architecture of market power in the modern economy.
I have blogged about this fallacy in the way the U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted the law in recent years.
The Yale Law Journal article Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox by LINA M. KHAN
Building the Dream has a great podcast What’s up with this inflation?.
Saikat and I discuss recent inflation fears with New Consensus’ Bob Hockett.
The beauty of this discussion is not that they have answers to every question, but that they tell you what are the right questions to ask. When you know the right questions and you know what answers are missing, you can have some equanimity in living through unsettled times. You can at least foresee what will settle things down.
I picked this up from a share of Tulsi Gabbard Locals that had the title The truth about Idlib in Syria: it is al-Qaeda’s largest safe haven in the world. I have no idea how or if this is really connected to Tulsi Gabbard.
The featured YouTube video is Former Hostage of Al Qaeda in Syria Rejects Jolani’s PBS Makeover: “They Are Lunatics with Guns”.
To discuss this and more, Rania Khalek is joined by Theo Padnos, who was held as a hostage of Jabhat Al Nusra for two years, enduring day after day of torture and getting unique insight into the group. He’s also the author of the recently published book Blindfold: A Memoir of Capture, Torture, and Enlightenment.
Of course I have no idea where the truth lies in any of this. If I believe any of this, it is the fact that you can be an eyewitness to something and still not understand what you are seeing.
So how can I even judge this video?
The Institute for New Economic Thinking as an article Standard Inflation Theory Leaves Out Social Conflict and Costs.
Pontification about inflation of prices of goods and services is on a rampage. Almost all the noise is based on inadequate inflation theory.
Politically it is unlikely, but labor’s share of GDP could grow with changes of tax laws, changes in regulation, and enforcement of anti-monopoly laws. “free” trade that concentrated on trade, labor, and environment instead of intellectual property protection could also be significant. Decreases in conventional war and economic war could also be important. This article is way too narrowly focused. Also economics is a balance of forces. Some forces are so small they have little impact compared to the bigger forces, but what is a big force and what is a small force change with times. Models that simplify by ignoring small forces at the time the model is formulated become obsolete models when the assumed balance of forces change.
Also economic activity depends not only on how much money the government pumps into the private sector, it also depends on who in the private sector gets that money. As more of that money gets distributed to the people who buy consumer goods, we can see higher consumer price inflation compared to stock and asset price inflation. Changes from a home ownership model to a home rental model can have a profound impact on wealth distribution and other economic behavior. Student debt has already had a profound affect on the economy.
Considering the number of people who do not want to go to work under current conditions, many of their number may be among the 600,000 people who died from Covid-19. Those people cannot come back to work no matter what wage is offered.
The Realignment Podcast has an interview with Frank DiStefano.
Frank DiStefano, author of The Next Realignment: Why America’s Parties Are Crumbling and What Happens Next, returns to The Realignment to define what realignments are (and aren’t), how either political party could collapse, and why our system isn’t ready to face the 21st century.
Some very interesting ways to think about our current political/social situation. There may be some seeds of how to think about the problem in a different way. I am surprised that they don’t think about Bernie Sanders. Maybe they think Bernie Sanders is too 20th century. In my view the problem with Sanders is that he talks too 20th century, but I think he is able to think beyond that.
There is a Frank Distefano YouTube Channel