Business leaders press for measures to boost construction … Business has called for "radical" measures to boost growth and restore confidence in the Budget, with tax cuts for companies and a push on infrastructure. Business wants the Government to push on with building projects … Employers group the CBI, the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), and manufacturers organisation t...Read More
Ghana … Golden Opportunities Africa: Investing in the Cradle of Civilization … This year could prove an interesting one for Africa's west coastal country, Ghana. Presidential and parliamentary elections are slated to be held by year-end, the results of which are almost sure to impact the shape of the country's future. President John Atta Mills has stated in the press that he wi...Read More
Recovery in U.S. Is Lifting Profits, but Not Adding Jobs … A Growing Divide: As federal budget cuts begin, high productivity and low interest rates help corporations but not job seekers. … "So far in this recovery, corporations have captured an unusually high share of the income gains," said Ethan Harris, co-head of global economics at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. "The...Read More
The Dow Isn't Really At A Record High (And It Wouldn't Matter If It Were) … Just a quick, cranky reminder: Despite what you may have read, the Dow Jones industrial average did not hit a new high today in any meaningful sense. After adjusting for inflation, the Dow was higher in 2000 than it is today. It was also higher in 2007. It would need to rise another 10 percent or so to hit an...Read More
Platform … Comedian Beppe Grillo, the surprise, true winner of Italy's inconclusive February 24-25 elections, has a secret card up his sleeve: an economic 'guru' with close ties to Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz. For his economics policies the Genoese comedian turns to Mauro Gallegati, an economics professor at the Polytechnic University of the Marche region who has taught at Cam...Read More
Recovery in U.S. Is Lifting Profits, but Not Adding Jobs … A Growing Divide: As federal budget cuts begin, high productivity and low interest rates help corporations but not job seekers. … "So far in this recovery, corporations have captured an unusually high share of the income gains," said Ethan Harris, co-head of global economics at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. "The...Read More
The Dow Isn't Really At A Record High (And It Wouldn't Matter If It Were) … Just a quick, cranky reminder: Despite what you may have read, the Dow Jones industrial average did not hit a new high today in any meaningful sense. After adjusting for inflation, the Dow was higher in 2000 than it is today. It was also higher in 2007. It would need to rise another 10 percent or so to hit an...Read More
Platform … Comedian Beppe Grillo, the surprise, true winner of Italy's inconclusive February 24-25 elections, has a secret card up his sleeve: an economic 'guru' with close ties to Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz. For his economics policies the Genoese comedian turns to Mauro Gallegati, an economics professor at the Polytechnic University of the Marche region who has taught at Cam...Read More
Italy's Bersani on collision course with Germany and ECB over austerity … Italy's Pier Luigi Bersani vowed to break free of the country's austerity regime as he laid out plans for a centre-Left government, risking a serious clash with Germany and the European Central Bank. Mr Bersani's Democrats (Pd) and its allies control the lower house but failed to win the senate. He is h...Read More
Hyperinflation! The Libertarian Fantasy That Never Occurs … While it is probably true that no one has ever gone broke underestimating the intelligence of the public, it is also true that many who try to turn a profit from stupidity often become the victims of their own nonsense. As we have discussed previously, the fear industry that has grown up since 2008 – mainly centered on the gol...Read More
Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (Book Review) … Review by Bill Gates …. The book goes back in history to talk about economic growth during Roman times. The problem with this is that before 800AD, the economy everywhere was based on sustenance farming. So the fact that various Roman government structures were more or less inclusive did not affect growth....Read More
Italy's Bersani on collision course with Germany and ECB over austerity … Italy's Pier Luigi Bersani vowed to break free of the country's austerity regime as he laid out plans for a centre-Left government, risking a serious clash with Germany and the European Central Bank. Mr Bersani's Democrats (Pd) and its allies control the lower house but failed to win the senate. He is h...Read More
Hyperinflation! The Libertarian Fantasy That Never Occurs … While it is probably true that no one has ever gone broke underestimating the intelligence of the public, it is also true that many who try to turn a profit from stupidity often become the victims of their own nonsense. As we have discussed previously, the fear industry that has grown up since 2008 – mainly centered on the gol...Read More
Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (Book Review) … Review by Bill Gates …. The book goes back in history to talk about economic growth during Roman times. The problem with this is that before 800AD, the economy everywhere was based on sustenance farming. So the fact that various Roman government structures were more or less inclusive did not affect growth....Read More
Mark Carney to the bankers: the joke is on you now … In the long run, "heads-I-win-tails-you-lose finance" catches up to you. That was the message Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney delivered to an audience of finance majors at Western University's Richard Ivey School of Business today. In other words: "don't you kids try to play that game." It's in the banks...Read More
What Saved the Dow? Sensible Economic Policies … As of the closing bell on Tuesday, the Dow was trading at 14,254—well above the previous all-time peak of 14,198, which the market reached on October 11, 2007. With investors increasingly optimistic about the economy, nearly four hundred issues on the New York Stock Exchange hit new highs. Sticklers will point out that, after accounting...Read More
Celebrations are in order on the poorest continent. Never in the half-century since it won independence from the colonial powers has Africa been in such good shape. Its economy is flourishing. Most countries are at peace. Ever fewer children bear arms and record numbers go to school. Mobile phones are as ubiquitous as they are in India and, in the worst-affected countries, HIV infections have fall...Read More
Western political economy since the Industrial Revolution has been a vibrant world of rapid growth and development, at least for countries in the industrial "core." But it has also been a world of continuing and sometimes enormous fluctuations in economic activity. Business cycles — expansions and contractions across most sectors of an economy — have come to be taken as a fac...Read More
Mark Carney to the bankers: the joke is on you now … In the long run, "heads-I-win-tails-you-lose finance" catches up to you. That was the message Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney delivered to an audience of finance majors at Western University's Richard Ivey School of Business today. In other words: "don't you kids try to play that game." It's in the banks...Read More
What Saved the Dow? Sensible Economic Policies … As of the closing bell on Tuesday, the Dow was trading at 14,254—well above the previous all-time peak of 14,198, which the market reached on October 11, 2007. With investors increasingly optimistic about the economy, nearly four hundred issues on the New York Stock Exchange hit new highs. Sticklers will point out that, after accounting...Read More