One year ago, Tropical Storm Irene devastated large parts of the “brave little state of Vermont.” Here are three paintings by Chester artist James Jahrsdoerfer.
Archive for August, 2012
Remembering Irene
Posted: 31 August 2012 in UncategorizedTags: art, environment, flood 2011, painting, Vermont
Plus ça change. . .
Posted: 31 August 2012 in UncategorizedTags: Bush, jobs, McCain, Republicans, Romney
What’s the difference between the jobs plan announced by Mitt Romney and the plans for creating lots of new jobs that were part of the campaigns of previous Republican presidential candidates?
Rien.
Mike Konczal does a good job comparing the main points of the Republican jobs plans from 2012 (Romney), 2008 (McCain), 2006 (Bush, State of the Union), and 2004 (campaign). And they’re basically all the same:
Domestic oil production, school choice, trade agreements, cut spending and reduce taxes and regulations – it’s been the conservative answer to times of deep economic stress, times of economic recovery, times of economic worries and times of economic panic. Which is another way of saying that the Republicans have no plan for how to actually deal with this specific crisis we face.
Cartoon of the day
Posted: 31 August 2012 in UncategorizedTags: cartoon, climate change, economy, environment, jobs, Labor Day, politics, Romney, unemployment, workers
Planning vs. markets
Posted: 30 August 2012 in UncategorizedTags: economics, history, markets, neoclassical, planning
They just don’t get it.
Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson continue to insist that:
1. The Mycenaean palaces of the Aegean Late Bronze Age were based on central planning, notwithstanding new information stemming from the study of ancient economies that reveal “characteristics of decentralized economies and even vibrant markets.”
2. Central planning “involves the suppression of markets and price systems for the governing institutions and elites to better extract resources and politically and economically control society.”
3. Markets do not involve “the recruitment of goods and services for the benefit of a group not coterminous with the contributing members.”
After all this time, the simple planning-market dichotomy continues to structure neoclassical theories of historical and comparative development.
Only in the world of Thomas Friedman—and Reuters—is the arrival of McDonald’s a sign that development in Huancayo and the rest of Peru is taking place.
I have no doubt that, in Peru and elsewhere, the aspiring middle-class equates development with access to fast food and shopping malls. But that is very different from arguing that economic and social development—for the poor and working classes—is actually occurring.
Disclosure: I spent a year studying in Huancayo, from 1975 to 1976, at the Universidad Nacional del Centro del Perú.
Chart of the day
Posted: 30 August 2012 in UncategorizedTags: chart, corporations, profits, Second Great Depression, United States
Yes, Virginia: in the midst of the Second Great Depression, U.S. companies are making money at home. Lots of it.
Domestically earned profits of nonfinancial firms rose to $1.1 trillion in the second quarter, the fifth straight quarterly increase. Profits from Europe, China and the rest of the world have been uneven, dropping in the first quarter before edging higher in the second.
Protest of the day
Posted: 30 August 2012 in UncategorizedTags: Occupy Wall Street, protest, Wall Street
Occupy Wall Street will mark its first anniversary by trying to block traffic in the financial district and encircle the New York Stock Exchange on 17 September.
Chart of the day
Posted: 29 August 2012 in UncategorizedTags: chart, politics, United States, Wall Street
Democrats are good for Wall Street.
I always enjoy this kind of analysis of the contradictions of politics, like the fact that anti-abortion activists tend to vote for Republicans even though abortions are lower during Democratic administrations. In this case, CMC Markets demonstrates that, on average, Democratic presidents are better for Wall Street than Republican presidents.*
Returns were highest under Calvin Coolidge, a Republican president during the Roaring 20s, when the stock market boomed ahead of the Wall Street Crash. But the next two presidents in the league table are Democrats–Bill Clinton and Franklin Roosevelt. Barack Obama’s performance has been above average–only slightly below that of Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s and Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.
You can see the full YouTube presentation of the report here.
*Yes, I know: technically a table not a chart.