The debate over causes of the inflation surprise in the US is dominated by focus on the fiscal policy and late tightening, among other things. I think it’s of interest to note (again!) that the spike in inflation was not US-specific. Here are two graphs I presented in today’s lecture in the ISF.
Figure 1: Year-on-year headline CPI inflation for US (blue), Euro area HICP (tan), Canada (green), Japan (red), Sweden (lilac). Source: BLS, MEI via FRED, World Bank (for Japan).
Inflation rose in many countries, so either there’s a common global factor, or there’s a great coincidence in timing. Energy prices I think account for some of the acceleration.
What about looking at core inflation, which would then be driven more by domestic forces (not completely because there are imports)? Here we see acceleration too.
Figure 2: Year-on-year core CPI inflation for US (blue), Euro area HICP (tan), Canada (green), Japan (red), Sweden (lilac). Source: BLS, MEI via FRED, World Bank (for Japan).
While US core outstrips Euro Area in 2021-22, right now, core CPI and core HICP are running even (keeping in mind US core CPI outpaced core HICP pre-pandemic).
Finally, we have an liberal economist admit: ” Energy prices I think account for some of the acceleration.” Just like in Global Warming claims that CO2 is the cause, the amount of its effect is never defined. I don’t see how energy prices could not be a major factor, and YES it is a common policy across the countries with the more significant inflation.
But, but Mr CoRev, the world is being saved from ?Climate Change?! At what cost? Talk about negative externalities???? And we haven’t even seen the effects of recession, yet.
No wonder liberals don’t want to talk about their policy successes.
You either are a moron or you lied per usual. Energy prices rose not so much because of reasonable climate change efforts and more from a strong economy plus that little Russian invasion of Ukraine. Now little CoRev – please have your mommy change that stinking diaper.
Ole Bark, bark, speaking of lying, US inflation and most of the EU inflation started in 1st Qtr 2021, and the Russo Ukrainian war started in Feb 2022. so what was that cause of inflation the year before the Russo Ukrainian war?
I agree with Menzie. Energy price increases is/was a major cause of inflation. I guess you disagree.
CoReve First, Menzie did not say that energy price increases were a “major cause of inflation.” He said that energy accounted for “some of the acceleration.” Also, notice that both US headline and core CPI started to accelerate in 2021Q1, keeping in mind that some of that increase came after a decline in prices during peak COVID. Higher energy costs are not directly included in core CPI. If you had the math skills you could use the BEA’s I/O tables to estimate the extent to which higher energy costs indirectly affected the economy, but you’d have to know how to work a 402×402 Leontief matrix.
2slugs,, reading comprehension? I clearly said I believed ” Energy price increases is/was a major cause of inflation.” I even earlier quoted Menzie’s comment.
You also use an interesting term: “indirectly “? How can raising the price something which permeates the entirety of the economy be an indirect cause?
Regardless, I am pleased to wee you and Menzie finally agree that energy price increases due to your liberal/Biden’s policies have help cause the increase in inflation. Your might help us all by calculating the amount energy has caused inflation to increase and more importantly ho much that has lowered the temps.
I’ll wait for you to show us your superior math skills.
BTW, in all seriousness, you might go over to this blog thread to comment on a reasonable discussion. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/06/26/uncertain-uncertainties/ To my current reading I have not seen anyone comment who has your skill set.
The arrogantly superior liberal mind is an amazement.
CoRev Energy costs were one reason we saw higher inflation, but it was hardly a “major” reason. If you work through a Leontief I/O matrix of technical coefficients you’d find that rising energy costs likely contributed to no more than 0.6 percentage points. That’s not a trivial result, but it’s hardly a “major” reason. And much of that increase in energy costs was due to the strong macroeconomic recovery in 2021 following the collapse in demand for crude oil. For example, US crude oil production rose from 9.7 million barrels per day in May 2020 (i.e., during the depths of the COVID pandemic) to 11.4 million barrels per day a year later. And this shows up in the Domar weights. BEA data shows that oil and gas extraction had a Domar weight of 0.0175 in 2019 and then fell to 0.0121 in 2020 and then rose to 0.0195 in 2021. A lot of that increase was due to increased consumption of intermediate goods rather than final goods. And that is why I said those higher energy costs indirectly affected prices throughout the economy.
As to the wattsupwiththat website…well, it’s a joke. The guy is just some former TV weatherman with no more than a high school education. I’ve visited that website. There’s nothing “reasonable” about it.
Your might help us all by calculating the amount energy has caused inflation to increase and more importantly ho much that has lowered the temps.
Huh? Inflation hasn’t lowered demand for carbon-based energy. And as those Domar weights just showed you, oil and gas extraction has increased in terms of gross output (not GDP!!!), having gone from $255.3B in 2020 to $455.7B in 2021. Demand for those energy sources is high because the markets do not reflect all of the costs. The (more or less) consensus estimate is that you’d need a carbon tax of roughly $100/ton to align the costs of climate damage caused by fossil fuels. So we won’t see any reduction in temperatures until all of the costs are internalized, and even that won’t happen right away due to the longevity of CO2 in the atmosphere.
2slugs, please define your definition for and the data sources used in your analysis. the reason i ask is that I doubt anyone can determine with precision the impacts of “energy” price increases throughout an economy. “Energy” price increases propagate throughout every segment, lifecycle step and every product and service of the GDP. This discussion could go on forever due to the complexity of impacts.
Your disdain for Watts is no evidence of the value and validity information contained on his site. It is more a validation of your closed mind and inability for critical thinking. Did you review or participate in the comments on the link I provided. If not why not?
This comment: “Huh? Inflation hasn’t lowered demand for carbon-based energy.” show us how illogical is your thinking. Inflation has definitely negatively affected energy segments. This chart compare annual supply for just one energy segment gasoline: https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/weekly/article_images/twip230628fig1.png Supply and Demand are still evident and policy does impact S&P and market prices.
Moreover why did you cherry pick these dates: “… from $255.3B in 2020 to $455.7B in 2021.”? Starting with a year when when an economic shock caused by the Covid Pandemic to the 1st year of recovery? Why the need to lie?
The cherry picking and lying liberal mind is amazement. I do appreciate the attempt at response/refutation.
“I agree with Menzie.”
So when Dr. Chinn notes to us that the most recent rise in energy prices had little to do with climate change policies, you agree with him?
CoRev – retarded dog chasing its own tail!
“Energy prices I think account for some of the acceleration.” Just like in Global Warming claims that CO2 is the cause, the amount of its effect is never defined….”
Importantly, the CO2 effect on climate change has been clearly defined and repeatedly affirmed:
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/ha00410c.html
December, 2008
Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?
By James Hansen, Makiko Sato, Pushker Kharecha, David Beerling, Robert Berner, Valerie Masson-Delmotte, Mark Pagani, Maureen Raymo, Dana L. Royer and James C. Zachos
Abstract
Paleoclimate data show that climate sensitivity is ~ 3°C for doubled CO2, including only fast feedback processes. Equilibrium sensitivity, including slower surface albedo feedbacks, * is ~ 6°C for doubled CO2 for the range of climate states between glacial conditions and ice-free Antarctica. Decreasing CO2 was the main cause of a cooling trend that began 50 million years ago, the planet being nearly ice-free until CO2 fell to 450 ± 100 ppm; barring prompt policy changes, that critical level will be passed, in the opposite direction, within decades. If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm ** to at most 350 ppm, but likely less than that. The largest uncertainty in the target arises from possible changes of non-CO2 forcings. *** An initial 350 ppm CO2 target may be achievable by phasing out coal use except where CO2 is captured and adopting agricultural and forestry practices that sequester carbon. If the present overshoot of this target CO2 is not brief, there is a possibility of seeding irreversible catastrophic effects. ****
* Surface reflectivity of sun’s radiation
** Currently ~ 419 ppm: https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/
*** Net change in radiant emittance or irradiance
**** https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2008/2008_Hansen_ha00410c.pdf
“Energy prices I think account for some of the acceleration.” Just like in Global Warming claims that CO2 is the cause, the amount of its effect is never defined….”
Importantly, the CO2 effect on climate change has been clearly defined and repeatedly affirmed:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
January 15, 2022
Atmospheric Concentration of Carbon Dioxide, 1980-2022
(Parts per million by volume)
1980 ( 338.76) (Low)
1981 ( 340.12)
1982 ( 341.48)
1983 ( 343.15)
1984 ( 344.87)
1985 ( 346.35)
1986 ( 347.61)
1987 ( 349.31)
1988 ( 351.69)
1989 ( 353.20)
1990 ( 354.45)
1991 ( 355.70)
1992 ( 356.54)
1993 ( 357.21)
1994 ( 358.96)
1995 ( 360.97)
1996 ( 362.74)
1997 ( 363.88)
1998 ( 366.84)
1999 ( 368.54)
2000 ( 369.71)
2001 ( 371.32)
2002 ( 373.45)
2003 ( 375.98)
2004 ( 377.70)
2005 ( 379.98)
2006 ( 382.09)
2007 ( 384.02)
2008 ( 385.83)
2009 ( 387.64)
2010 ( 390.10)
2011 ( 391.85)
2012 ( 394.06)
2013 ( 396.74)
2014 ( 398.81)
2015 ( 401.01)
2016 ( 404.41)
2017 ( 406.76)
2018 ( 408.72)
2019 ( 411.66)
2020 ( 414.24)
2021 ( 416.45)
2022 ( 418.56) (High)
“Energy prices I think account for some of the acceleration.” Just like in Global Warming claims that CO2 is the cause, the amount of its effect is never defined….”
Importantly, the CO2 effect on climate change has been clearly defined and repeatedly affirmed:
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/national/time-series
April 17, 2022
Climate at a Glance, 1895-2022
Temperature and Precipitation
Global
National
Regional
Statewide
Divisional
County
City
CoRev If you’re going to invoke the term “negative externalities,” then please, please, please make an effort to at least understand what those two words mean. It’s obvious that you don’t know what economists mean when they refer to negative externalities. In the context of carbon-based energy policies, negative externalities lower the market price. Dumb ass.
2slugs, I use this definition for externalities: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/externality.asp, and it does not agree with your comment: “In the context of carbon-based energy policies, negative externalities lower the market price.”
From the reference: ” After the late 1990s, governments enacted legislation imposing the cost of externalities on the producer.
Many corporations pass the cost of externalities on to the consumer by making their goods and services more expensive.”
If we stick just to the economic definition: ” Externalities are negative when the social costs outweigh the private costs. ” then my comment is still accurate: ” Energy prices I think account for some of the acceleration.” Just like in Global Warming claims that CO2 is the cause, the amount of its effect is never defined. I don’t see how energy prices could not be a major factor, and YES it is a common policy across the countries with the more significant inflation.
But, but Mr CoRev, the world is being saved from ?Climate Change?! At what cost? Talk about negative externalities?…”
Example after example show that in the real world of ?Climate Change? mitigation, attempts to limit ?carbon/CO2? externalities overwhelmingly raise the market price.
Why is it so necessary and natural for the liberal mind to lie about ?Climate Change??
The lying liberal mind is an amazement.
CoRev Externalities are costs that are not included in the market price. In other words, the costs are externalized. Since we do not have carbon taxes, the third-party costs are not captured in the market price. In other words, with negative externalities the market price understates the true cost, so that is why I said that negative externalities lower the market price. You seem to believe that carbon taxes are negative externalities. You couldn’t have gotten things more wrong. It’s exactly the opposite. The whole point of carbon taxes is to raise the market price so that the market internalizes all of the costs. You really need to read some economics before commenting on this blog. It might save you from embarrassing yourself when you misunderstand your own links.
2slugs, again your unicorn-based definition contradicts reality. Even your attempt at explaining your carbon tax solution contradicts your definition: ” In the context of carbon-based energy policies, negative externalities lower the market price. Dumb ass.” but then you say: ” The whole point of carbon taxes is to raise the market price so that the market internalizes all of the costs.” Internalizing negative externalities is just another unicorn-based euphemism for raising the market price.
How more wrong can you be? Dumb Ass!
The perpetually wrong headed, unicorn-based liberal mind is an amazement.
CoRev I’ll make one more attempt to get this through your thick skull. Negative externalities are costs incurred during the production or consumption of some commodity but the observed market price does not include those costs. This means the market price is lower than the total cost to all parties. Negative externalities lower the observed cost, which results to suboptimal overproduction and overconsumption of that commodity. Carbon taxes internalize those otherwise negative externalities and raise the market price such that all costs are included, which brings down production and consumption. Got it? Negative externalities left uncorrected lower the market price. Carbon taxes correct that market failure by capturing those costs and internalizing them into the market price. So uncorrected negative externalities result in lower market prices while internalizing those costs raises the market price.
Please buy an introductory microeconomics textbook.
2slugs, I will again to correct your ill formed concepts. In the real world laws have been changed to attempt to include externalities within the market prices. If the laws are failing then define the needed improvements.
The discussion over economic externalities, mostly negative, is fascinating in that it is part of the overall discussion of Cost-Benefits of solutions. Trying to monetize these economic externalities, mostly negative, when compared to establishing the “True Cost” for a solution. In your case a Carbon Tax. Still in the larger context of Cost-Benefits the benefits remain un-monetized. The evidence is overwhelming that our lives have been improved and extended due to use of the fossil fuels you carbon tax wishes to lower or even eliminate use.
What is the monetized value of a life? Or, what is the value of the improved life style? Just like the costs of and impacts on temperatures are not calculated for mitigation of fossil fuels, these benefits remain un-calculated. Watts Up With That?
The liberal mind is an amazement.
CoRev
June 27, 2023 at 5:31 am
2slugs, I use this definition for externalities
followed by CoRev’s usual babble that only proves CoRev does not understand what any of this means.
He certainly is a perfect example of one of Groucho Marx’s greatest lines: “He May talk like an idiot and he may look like an idiot. But don’t let that fool you. He really is an idiot.”
Well, I’m not a liberal in the U.S. meaning of the term – neither the simple dictionary meaning nor the CoRev making-stuff-up meaning – nor am I an elected officials, but if CoVid is going to lie about “liberals”, by which I assume he means Democrats, I’ll at least do some fact checking…
Rapid employment growth: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=16t6z
Rapid decline in the fiscal deficit: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=16t6E
The first major infrastructure spending bill in a generation: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/5376/text
A record low rate of childhood poverty, which has unfortunately been increasing since Republicans took the House: https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/09/record-drop-in-child-poverty.html
And, of course, the improvement in inflation relative to the rest of the world that is the subject of this post. That improvement is the result of Fed policy and improved supply conditions much more than anything “liberals” have done, but since CoVid has tried to blame “liberals” for inflation, he must naturally thing “liberals” are due some credit for disinflation, right?
McQuack, the subject of this blog article was: “Inflation across Some Countries”. Please show us how the list of Biden’s successful policy achievements has successfully impacted “Inflation across Some Countries” or even just here in the US. Moreover, please associate the changes to defined Biden policies, and not carryovers from Trump’s policies.
Dude – this is just more of your usual gibberish. Relax guy – you have already proven you are incredibly stupid.
Your comment blathering about CO2 far more than about inflation. Then, your lying final sentence was “No wonder liberals don’t want to talk about their policy successes.”
“Successes”, not “successes relative to inflation outside the U.S.”. So I responded to what yous wrote, not what you are now pretending I should have responded to.
If you don’t have the intellectual courage to stand by your own writing, maybe you should pipe down.
McQuack, I commend you on your attempt to list liberal/Biden’s successful “policies”. Although you show a modest list of improvements/successes, you failed the policy list. It is the reason I asked for: ” please associate the changes to defined Biden policies, and not carryovers from Trump’s policies.”
Also, when you start a comment without reference to the source or why or to whom you are commenting, you will get comments re: relevance to the article subject: “the subject of this blog article was: “Inflation across Some Countries”.
Perhaps it’s just laziness and/or fuzzy thinking, but expect why, what, how questions when you cold drop comments.
The fuzzy thinking an unrelated responses of the liberal mind is an amazement.
“Energy prices I think account for some of the acceleration.” Just like in Global Warming claims that CO2 is the cause, the amount of its effect is never defined….”
Importantly, the CO2 effect on climate change has been clearly defined and repeatedly affirmed. Also, by acting continually to limit the emission of CO2, China managed to severely limit domestic energy price increases and in building multiple different non-fossil fuel energy sources has essentially become energy self-sufficient. By taking climate change as scientifically given, and heavily investing in anticipated needs, such as water conservancy, China has essentially also assured that it will be food self-sufficient.
LTR, “… the amount of its effect is never defined….”, as a rebuttal you say: “… the CO2 effect on climate change has been clearly defined and repeatedly affirmed. ” Neither defined nor affirmed provides a metric for their effect on ?Climate Change?.
Moreover you claim that: “China … has essentially become energy self-sufficient.”; therefore China is NOT importing fossil fuels? Not true, and again just more propaganda. It is true that China has importer less of some fossil fuels, but this appears due to modest increase in domestic production coupled with a slowing economy.
Moreover you claim that: “China … has essentially become energy self-sufficient.”; therefore China is NOT importing fossil fuels? Not true, and again just more propaganda.
[ China has become food self-sufficient, even having about a 2 and a half year store of grain and pork. However, China imports many foods including rice and wheat and vegetable and fruits and even teas. Similarly, China imports oil and gas and even coal of which China has ample reserves and a devoted domestic coal transport network. China also in investing heavily, heavily in domestic energy and food production resources. However, China is food and energy self-sufficient.
As for a slowing Chinese economy, select Western economists have been forecasting this for more than 40 years and been continually incorrect. Chinese economists really do know how to generate growth, and are not about to forget what has been learned these 40 and more years.
Thank you, I appreciate the response. ]
ltr, just more propaganda, and not an answer to the point re: “China … has essentially become energy self-sufficient.”. “China has become food self-sufficient..” is a long way from energy self-sufficient.”.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2023-06-25/World-s-largest-hydro-solar-power-station-officially-operates-in-China-1kV6xfwZ7Pi/index.html
June 26, 2023
World’s largest hydro-solar power station enters operation in China
The first phase of the world’s largest hydro-solar power plant, also the world’s highest power station of its kind, entered full operation in China on Sunday.
With an installed capacity scale of one million kilowatts, the Kela photovoltaic power station’s annual generating capacity of the first phase will be two billion kilowatt-hours (kWh), and that is enough to cover the needs of 700,000 households for a whole year,” which is equivalent to 600,000 tonnes of standard coal and will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 1.6 million tonnes,” Yang Zhiwei, the construction project manager, told China Media Group (CMG).
The plant, situated in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Garze in southwest China’s Sichuan Province’s Yajiang County, is now connected with Lianghekou hydropower plant, which was put into operation in March with a total installed capacity of three million kilowatts, marking the completion of the first phase of the grand project.
Upon full completion, the Kela project’s total installed capacity scale will exceed 100 million kilowatts, with annual power generation of around 300 billion kWh, sufficient to serve 100 million households for a year.
With a reliance on sunlight to generate electricity, the power generation of photovoltaic power stations fluctuates between day and night amid weather events. The hydropower component helps to regulate all instability in PV power supply, providing stable and high-quality clean electricity for the power grid.
How big is Kela?
The Kela PV power plant is next to National Highway 318, a key transport route linking Sichuan and the neighboring Xizang Autonomous Region.
The first phase of the plant is built at an altitude of around 4,600 meters, which is equal to the altitude of the Ali region in Xizang, the Third Pole in the world, and 1,000 meters above the altitude of the city of Lhasa.
In just one hour, its one-million-kilowatts installed capacity can fully charge 15,000 electric vehicles with a range of 550 kilometers.
With an area exceeding 16 million square meters, it is bigger than 2,000 standard football fields….
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2023-06-02/China-produces-hydrogen-by-direct-seawater-electrolysis-1kjxYMpo2I0/index.html
June 2, 2023
China produces hydrogen by direct seawater electrolysis
By Liu Tianwen
China tested its hydrogen production technology at sea with a direct seawater electrolysis method on Friday at the Xinghua Bay offshore wind farm, east China’s Fujian Province.
The test was verified by a team of experts from Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE).
A floating offshore platform for hydrogen production, Dongfu No. 1, was used in the test.
The platform, jointly developed by a team led by Xie Heping, CAE’s academician, and Dongfang Electric Corporation, integrated in multiple systems, including in situ hydrogen production, intelligent energy conversion management, and safety detection and control systems.
It is the world’s first platform combined with renewable energy, said the Sichuan-based enterprise, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of power-generating equipment.
It has been stable for more than 240 hours after enduring the test of force eight wind speeds, one-meter high waves and rainstorm.
Oceans are the largest source of hydrogen gas. However, the complex composition of seawater, which contains more than 90 chemical elements and a large number of microorganisms and suspended particles, brings corrosion and toxicity issues, catalyst inactivation, low electrolytic efficiency and other technical bottlenecks and challenges. *
Indirect seawater splitting relies on large-scale desalination equipment, making the process complicated and occupying land resources, increasing the cost of hydrogen production.
As for hydrogen production by direct electrolysis of seawater, there hasn’t been any breakthrough in avoiding the impact of complex components of seawater on the electrolytic hydrogen production system in nearly half a century.
Currently, water electrolysis technologies rely on ultrapure freshwater. Academician Xie said that the method they used can separate the influence of more than 90 complex elements and microorganisms in seawater, breaking the common methods for hydrogen production….
* https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05379-5
“China … has essentially become energy self-sufficient.”; therefore China is NOT importing fossil fuels? Not true, and again just more propaganda. It is true that China has importer less of some fossil fuels, but this appears due to modest increase in domestic production coupled with a slowing economy.
[ Importantly, along with installed hydro and solar and wind and wave and nuclear energy sources, China has developed and is producing the components domestically. Hydro or nuclear, then, mean China developed and produced. Then we have non-fossil fuel vehicles, from cars to buses to trucks even to locomotives and ships, developed and component produced in China. There were 717,000 New Energy Vehicles (automobiles) produced in China just this May. *
There is much more to add.
* https://english.news.cn/20230627/647b1867fac644388a611d235c19f158/c.html
Again, I am grateful for the response. ]
?Climate Change?! At what cost? Talk about negative externalities????
[ Possibly this passage might be explained, since I do not understand what negative externalities there might be in working on non-fossil fuel energy resources. Even Saudi Arabia and the UAE are working on alternative energy resources, let alone Norway. Where could there be a problem with such investments? ]
There’s a nice profile of Isabella Weber over at the New Yorker, titled “What if we’re thinking about inflation all wrong.”
https://www.newyorker.com/news/persons-of-interest/what-if-were-thinking-about-inflation-all-wrong
Back at the end of 2021she published a piece at The Guardian: “Could strategic price controls help fight inflation? To prevent inflation after World War II, America’s leading economists recommended strategic price controls. Is there a case for doing so today, too?”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/commentisfree/2021/dec/29/inflation-price-controls-time-we-use-it?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1640776964
The reaction was vicious and crude (and from my experience not atypical for economists:) A business-school professor called it “the worst” take of the year. Random Bitcoin guys called her “stupid.” The Nobel laureate Paul Krugman called her “truly stupid.” Conservatives at Fox News, Commentary, and National Review piled on, declaring Weber’s idea “perverse,” “fundamentally unsound,” and “certainly wrong.”
Meanwhile, mainstream economists were summarily dismissing the idea that Corporate America, the very folks with the means, the motive, and the opportunity to profiteer, had anything to do with driving inflation. https://www.kentclarkcenter.org/surveys/inflation-market-power-and-price-controls/
Weber’s ideas have certainly come a long way, as evidenced by her being profiled by the New Yorker. Over at the Institute for New Economic Thinking, they’re having quite a debate about price-led inflation and markups. https://www.ineteconomics.org/
And where exactly are mainstream economists? Where are the folks who dismissed any suggestion of Corporate America having anything to do with driving inflation? Where is Team Transitory? Where are the folks who created and promoted those wildly inaccurate inflation forecasts? Have they decided to examine the evidence and deepen their knowledge of what drives inflation? Or are they just sticking to their dodgy orthodoxy?
Oh boy – the trolls are out in force today. Now Jonny boy – you have not answered the question of which Central America nation Mitch McConnell’s latest filibuster tried to take over.
“IMF Confirms that Profits Are Driving Inflation” but trolls like pgl still want you to believe that corporate behavior should be exempt from scrutiny. https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/06/imf-confirms-that-profits-are-driving-inflation.html
It’s heartening that now there are cracks in the facade– even some mainstream economists are willing to acknowledge corporations’ role. I wonder if Krugman will even dedicate an opinion piece to it?
Where do you get these LIES about what I have said or what I believe? Listen dude – you are a very demented little liar. Take Macroduck’s advice and at least TRY to be honest for once in your worthless little life.
pgl is still acting like a stooge for Corporate America…defending their record profit margins against charges of “greedflation” and price gouging. It’s very consistent with his lack of concern about DOD waste, fraud, and mismanagement as well as his absence of concern about DOD’s inability to pass an audit that accounts for where the massive “defense” budget is going. Oh, and his total lack of concern about how much taxpayer money is being skimmed off by Team Zelenskyin Ukraine.
Oh, but he’ll sure make a lot of unsubstantiated claims that he has “talked about” all these issues at some time, somewhere…maybe a CYA thing in the distant past?
Doles Jonny boy ever bothers to read his own links? The IMF entitled this paper with this:
Europe’s Inflation Outlook Depends on How Corporate Profits Absorb Wage Gains
The first paragraph includes:
Now that workers are pushing for pay rises to recoup lost purchasing power, companies may have to accept a smaller profit share if inflation is to remain on track to reach the European Central Bank’s 2-percent target in 2025, as projected in our most recent World Economic Outlook.
And there is this:
Profits (adjusted for inflation) were about 1 percent above their pre-pandemic level in the first quarter of this year. Meanwhile, compensation of employees (also adjusted) was about 2 percent below trend. This is not the same as saying that profitability has increased, as discussed in our paper.
Gee Jonny boy does not realize how what the IMF wrote is inconsistent with his emotional rants. But hey – Jonny boy never did learn to READ.
pgl is just blowing smoke again to try and cover for corporate “greedflation.” All you need to do is look at the graph showing the “annual change in consumption deflator.” The corporate profit portion is very, very big.
But that’s pgl’s role…blow smoke and divert attention from what’s going on.
The IMF blog also noted:
This lag in wage gains makes sense: wages are slower than prices to react to shocks. This is partly because wage negotiations are held infrequently.
This is the point that Dr. Chinn has ably made. Did Jonny not understand what Dr. Chinn wrote? Maybe so as Jonny boy was too busy getting all emotional attacking other people who actually bothered to think about the actual economics here.
I re-read what Yves Smith wrote about this IMF as I was wondering if Yves misled little Jonny boy. But to Yves credit he noted much of what the IMF actually said that I noted in my previous.
No little Jonny’s misrepresentation of what the IMF actually wrote is all entirely little Jonny’s fault. Yep – Jonny may be a lying troll or he may just be a stupid little boy who never learned to read.
Random Bitcoin, the National Review, and Faux News as mainstream economists? Dude – your stupidity burns.
Yes Krugman was initially harsh but if you had an ounce of integrity in your lying bones – you would note he apologized.
Now if you were a decent person (which is a laugh) you would spend the rest of your worthless life apologizing to the hosts of this blog. But you won’t as you are truly a spineless weasel.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-01-22/The-case-for-strategic-price-policies-171AF24WDgk/index.html
January 22, 2022
The case for strategic price policies
By James K. Galbraith
With a single commentary * in The Guardian (and an unintended assist ** from New York Times columnist Paul Krugman), economist Isabella Weber of the University of Massachusetts injected clear thinking into a debate that had been suppressed for 40 years. Specifically, she has advanced the idea that rising prices call for a price policy. Imagine that.
The last vestige of a systematic price policy in America, the White House Council on Wage and Price Stability, was abolished on January 29, 1981, a week after Ronald Reagan took office. That put an end to a run of policies that had begun in April 1941 with the creation of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply – seven months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
U.S. price policies took various forms over the next four decades. During World War II, selective price controls quickly gave way to a “general maximum price regulation” (with exceptions), followed by a full freeze with the “hold the line order” of April 1943.
In 1946, price controls were repealed (over objections from Paul Samuelson and other leading economists), only to be reinstated in 1950 for the Korean War and repealed again in 1953. In the 1960s, the Kennedy and Johnson administrations instituted pricing “guideposts,” which were breached by U.S. Steel, provoking an epic confrontation. In the following decade, Richard Nixon imposed price freezes in 1971 and 1973, with more flexible policies, called “stages,” thereafter.
Federal price policies during this period had a twofold purpose: to handle emergencies such as war (or, in the cynical 1971 case, Nixon’s re-election) and to coordinate key price and wage expectations in peacetime, so that the economy would reach full employment with real (inflation-adjusted) wages matching productivity gains. As America’s postwar record of growth, job creation, and productivity shows, these policies were highly effective, which is why mainstream economists considered them indispensable.
The case for eliminating price policies was advanced largely by business lobbies that opposed controls because they interfered with profits and the exercise of market power. Right-wing economists – chiefly Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek – gave the lobbyists an academic imprimatur, conjuring visions of “perfectly competitive” firms whose prices adjusted freely to keep the economy in perpetual equilibrium at full employment.
Economists with such fantasies held no positions of public power before 1981. But in the 1970s, the practical conditions for maintaining a successful price policy started to erode. Problems multiplied with the breakdown of international exchange-rate management in 1971, the loss of control over oil prices in 1973, and the rise of foreign industrial competitors (first Germany and Japan, then Mexico and South Korea).
Relations with organized labor started to go bad under Jimmy Carter, who also appointed Paul Volcker to run the US. Federal Reserve. But even as late as 1980, Carter imposed credit controls – a move that won public acclaim but also arguably cost him his re-election, because the economy slipped into a brief recession.
Reagan and Volcker succeeded against inflation where Carter had failed, because they were willing to pay an enormous price: unemployment above 10 percent in 1982, a global debt crisis that nearly brought down the largest U.S. banks, and widespread deindustrialization, particularly in the Midwest. A new economic mainstream defended all this by falsely proclaiming that price policies had always failed. The era of TINA (“there is no alternative”) had begun.
The Reagan-era policies also paved the way for China’s rise. As Weber’s scholarly work shows, China’s economic strategy in the 1980s relied on price controls with slow adjustments, similar to the U.S. policies of the 1940s….
* https://www.theguardian.com/business/commentisfree/2021/dec/29/inflation-price-controls-time-we-use-it
** https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1477247341212184577
James K. Galbraith is chair in Government/Business Relations at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.
Galbraith is a decent man. Unfortunately, the show is run by gangsters.
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2023/April/weo-report?c=223,924,132,134,534,536,158,186,112,111,&s=PCPIPCH,&sy=2007&ey=2022&ssm=0&scsm=1&scc=0&ssd=1&ssc=0&sic=0&sort=country&ds=.&br=1
April 15, 2023
Inflation Rate for Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States, 2007-2022
2017
Brazil ( 3.4)
China ( 1.5)
France ( 1.2)
Germany ( 1.7)
India ( 3.6)
Indonesia ( 3.8)
Japan ( 0.5)
Turkey ( 11.1)
United Kingdom ( 2.7)
United States ( 2.1)
2018
Brazil ( 3.7)
China ( 1.9)
France ( 2.1)
Germany ( 1.9)
India ( 3.4)
Indonesia ( 3.3)
Japan ( 1.0)
Turkey ( 16.3)
United Kingdom ( 2.5)
United States ( 2.4)
2019
Brazil ( 3.7)
China ( 2.9)
France ( 1.3)
Germany ( 1.4)
India ( 4.8)
Indonesia ( 2.8)
Japan ( 0.5)
Turkey ( 15.2)
United Kingdom ( 1.8)
United States ( 1.8)
2020
Brazil ( 3.2)
China ( 2.5)
France ( 0.5)
Germany ( 0.4)
India ( 6.2)
Indonesia ( 2.0)
Japan ( – 0.3)
Turkey ( 12.3)
United Kingdom ( 0.9)
United States ( 1.3)
2021
Brazil ( 8.3)
China ( 0.9)
France ( 2.1)
Germany ( 3.2)
India ( 5.5)
Indonesia ( 1.6)
Japan ( – 0.2)
Turkey ( 19.6)
United Kingdom ( 2.6)
United States ( 4.7)
2022
Brazil ( 9.3)
China ( 1.9)
France ( 5.9)
Germany ( 8.7)
India ( 6.7)
Indonesia ( 4.2)
Japan ( 2.5)
Turkey ( 72.3)
United Kingdom ( 9.1)
United States ( 8.0)
Menzie has claimed that WUWT, one of the most popular climate change site in the world, is a misinformation site. This is what Anthony Watts said would ensue from of Biden’s (and your preferred) energy policies: “Anthony Watts, senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute, says Biden’s environmental policies revolve around more government regulation, which, he says, won’t result in less carbon emissions or pollution, but result in a slew of other consequences, including rise of energy prices and dependence on other countries for energy.” https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/01/27/my-interview-on-ntd-energy-prices-to-rise-under-biden/
BTW, this misinformation was broadcast on Jan 27, 2021. Just for the clueless, that was just days after Biden’s inauguration, Wednesday, January 20, 2021.
The clueless liberal mind is an amazement.
The Heartland Institute?
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/heartland-institute/
QUESTIONABLE SOURCE
A questionable source exhibits one or more of the following: extreme bias, consistent promotion of propaganda/conspiracies, poor or no sourcing to credible information, a complete lack of transparency, and/or is fake news. Fake News is the deliberate attempt to publish hoaxes and/or disinformation for profit or influence (Learn More). Sources listed in the Questionable Category may be very untrustworthy and should be fact-checked on a per article basis. Please note sources on this list are not considered fake news unless specifically written in the reasoning section for that source. See all Questionable sources.
Overall, we rate the Heartland Institute Right Biased and Questionable based on promoting anti-science propaganda, lack of transparency with funding, and more than five failed fact checks by IFCN fact-checkers.
Detailed Report
Reasoning: Propaganda, Numerous Failed Fact Checks, Lack of Transparency
Bias Rating: RIGHT
Factual Reporting: LOW
Country: USA
Press Freedom Rank: MOSTLY FREE
Media Type: Organization/Foundation
Traffic/Popularity: Minimal Traffic
MBFC Credibility Rating: LOW CREDIBILITY
History
Founded in 1984, The Heartland Institute is an American conservative and libertarian public policy think tank that conducts work on education reform, government spending, taxation, healthcare, education, tobacco policy, global warming, hydraulic fracturing, information technology, and free-market environmentalism. According to their about page, “The Heartland Institute is one of the world’s leading free-market think tanks. It is a national nonprofit research and education organization based in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems.
The Heartland Foundation has been criticized by some scientific organizations such as the Union of Concerned Scientists, who said, “Heartland has a long history of intentionally trying to confuse the public on behalf of corporate sponsors.” The Heartland Foundation responded by stating, “This is absolutely false, malicious, and libelous. We have never compromised our principles or altered our research findings to satisfy or attract a corporate donor. UCS cites no evidence to back up this baseless claim.”
Read our profile on the United States government and media.
Funded by / Ownership
The Heartland Institute has received funding in the past from notable right-leaning institutions such as Exxon-Mobil, Charles G. Koch Foundation, and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. In the past, the Heartland Institute listed their donors; however, they stopped this practice based on this reasoning: “For many years, we provided a complete list of Heartland’s corporate and foundation donors on this Web site and challenged other think tanks and advocacy groups to do the same. To our knowledge, not a single group followed our lead.
However, critics who couldn’t or wouldn’t engage in fair debate over our ideas found the donor list a convenient place to find the names of unpopular companies or foundations, which they used in ad hominem attacks against us. Even reporters from time to time seemed to think reporting the identities of one or two donors–out of a list of hundreds–was a fair way of representing our funding or our motivation in taking the positions expressed in our publications. After much deliberation and with some regret, we now keep confidential the identities of all our donors.” Since they no longer list their donors, we are unable to determine their sources of funding.
Analysis / Bias
In review, The Heartland Institute’s primary mission is to advocate for corporations and minimal regulations. For example, they have advocated on behalf of the tobacco industry, claiming that “We argue that the public health community exaggerates the (smoking) risks to justify their calls for more regulations on businesses and higher taxes on smokers and that the risk of adverse health effects from second-hand smoke is dramatically less than for active smoking, with many studies finding no adverse health effects at all. These positions are supported by many prominent scientists and virtually all free-market think tanks.” While Heartland may be able to find a few scientists and virtually all free-market think tanks (who aren’t scientists) to claim that second-hand smoke is not very harmful, that goes entirely against the consensus of the science.
The Heartland Institute is a leading supporter of human-influenced climate change denial, and when it comes to climate change information, they have made numerous false or misleading claims. They have also made false claims when it comes to other political issues. They have failed numerous fact-checks. See below.
Failed Fact Checks
Work requirements “have been proven to help impoverished families move from dependency to self-sufficiency.” – MOSTLY FALSE
“Model outputs published in successive IPCC reports since 1990 project a doubling of CO2 could cause warming of up to 6°C by 2100. Instead, global warming ceased around the end of the twentieth century and was followed (since 1997) by 19 years of stable temperature. Earth has not warmed significantly for the past 18 years despite an 8 percent increase in atmospheric CO2.” – INACCURATE
“[climate models] systematically over-estimate the sensitivity of climate to carbon dioxide … and modelers exclude forcings and feedbacks that run counter to their mission.” – INCORRECT
“Solar forcings are not too small to explain twentieth century warming. In fact, their effect could be equal to or greater than the effect of CO2 in the atmosphere.” – INCORRECT
“Forward projections of solar cyclicity imply the next few decades may be marked by global cooling rather than warming, despite continuing CO2emissions.” – INCORRECT
Wildfires were worse in the early part of the 1900s than they are today – Mostly False
“NOAA makes it official. Last 8 years… global cooling.” – False
Additional CO2 has boosted crop yields. – Misleading
Overall, we rate the Heartland Institute Right Biased and Questionable based on promoting anti-science propaganda, lack of transparency with funding, and more than five failed fact checks by IFCN fact-checkers. (7/19/2016) Updated (D. Van Zandt 02/23/2023)
Ole Bark, bark, that’s a lot of drivel which has nothing to do with the accuracy of Watt’s prediction.
Why are you so in denial of your preferred policy results? Where’s that ole list of Biden’s/liberal successful policies? We are considering only one of them, energy policy with a prescient, no not prescient, knowledgeable prediction for the US.
Denial? There is no denying that your rudimentary version of ChatGPT is producing really pointless gibberish such as your latest pointless comment.
The Heartland Institute? Oh brother. OK my take down of these blatant liars came out under something Macroduck said. CoRev – you really need to have your mommy change your stinky diaper.
I’m confused.
How can it so OBVIOUSLY be entirely Joe Biden’s fault, yet not be solely an American problem?
If Jerome Powell didn’t hate America so much (no, I DON’T remember who appointed him), wouldn’ we have the Greatest inflation rate.
I’m so confused.
Make it stop.
@ David O’Rear
So you’re telling us Powell’s rate increases have been very productive. Let’s mark this down for the next time we have supply chain problems and corporate profiteering so we know what to do, because “we now know what the solution is”.
I assume you were the star student in Larry Summers’ fall term “Let’s F*ck Lower-class America and Tell Them It’s Because Their Higher Wages” class. Kudos for you.
Moses Herzog,
I’m sorry to say I never studied under Summers; very smart man.
I did learn a bit, despite that. Things like
o> “If you want to drive down the fiscal deficit, the fastest way is via deep recession. Beware of unintended consequences.”
o> “If you want to drive down inflation, watch out for rising unemployment. Beware of unintended consequences.” and,
o> “GOPers are bad for your wealth.”
More rapid U.S. inflation in 2021 relative to other countries and subsequent earlier U.S. disinflation line up pretty well with exchange rate behavior, which lnes up pretty well with the funds rate:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=16sov
Interesting that inflation in Europe has been higher than inflation in the US while inflation in Asia has been lower. Then again – the Asian nations took the pandemic more seriously while the European nations didn’t so much.
Oh wait – our Usual Suspects have already told us that all global inflation was Biden’s fault.
Educational attainment among 13-year olds is in dismal shape. Covid apparently played a role. Must be those lockdowns, right? Well, the worst declines in educational attainment are aligned geographically with the highest Covid death rates, which are aligned with co-morbidity factors and low vaccination rates.
Taking Covid seriously has a number of advantages. Which is sort of the same as saying government intervention can have a number of advantages.
pgl,
There’s inflation and then there’s inflation.
Most Asian economies do not measure inflation very well.
It’s bad for morale.
Putin’s new line was that the Wagner Group’s forces should fold into Putin’s army but very few did so Putin’s forces decided it was their right to attack the Wagner Group? Given how poorly Putin pays his troops – why would anyone take this alleged deal? Besides – Putin’s military chiefs have proven themselves to be incompetent.
Hey I have a brilliant idea – why not just call us this stupid invasion of Ukraine?
Kevin Drum v. the Wall Street Journal on the shortage of restaurant workers:
https://jabberwocking.com/restaurants-are-too-stingy-to-get-all-the-workers-they-want/
“Americans are becoming fed up with lousy service while eating out. Many restaurants face a continued drought of experienced workers and are still working to get new hires up to speed. At the same time, customers are giving restaurants less leeway than earlier in the pandemic recovery, chefs and restaurant operators say, as customers remain peeved about rising prices and pandemic-era surcharges that linger on bills. ….Wages for hourly restaurant and bar workers have shot up in the past year, rising 5.2% in April from last year, according to the Labor Department. The steep rise in costs for cooks and servers has prompted many restaurants to rethink their labor models, as sales aren’t covering the expenses in many cases, operators said.” – WSJ
Kevin Drum replies:
Ahem. I wouldn’t say that 5.2% qualifies as “shot up.” Adjusted for inflation that comes to 1.1% over the past year—or about 20 cents per hour. Here’s what restaurant pay looks like over the past few years … Adjusted for inflation, restaurant pay has been flat for nearly two years. That hardly represents a massive effort at attracting new workers. Still, it turns out we really are still shortstaffed in our restaurants—by a little bit … Compared to the final month before the pandemic, we’re short about 160,000 restaurant workers, mainly because of shortfalls in full-service restaurants. Limited service restaurants have already recovered and now employ more workers than they did before the pandemic. Overall, restaurants continue to have problems because they refuse to raise their pay, but even at that their problems remain pretty small.
The WSJ needs better economic writers perhaps. Or maybe the WSJ is just shilling for the interests of the investor class.
The cost of food away from home is “shot up” 8.3% y/y, while restaurant labor costs are up 5.2%.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=16t9K
High vacancy rates have capped rental costs, not that it matters all that much, since “In most cases, the industry’s collective experience shows that the lease cost should total no more than 5 to 8 percent of the restaurant’s total revenues.”
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/percentage-rent-vs-revenue-restaurants-63410.html
What’s the big cost problem for restaurants? I’m gonna say food:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=16taL
A 20% increase y/y for food at home, so probably something like that for restaurants. No good complaining about that, though, ’cause that’s just good business.
Macroduck,
On restaurant inflation, where is that extra 20-40% for food delivery services?
Honest question; I assume it is in there somewhere.
Yeah, this is one of those aggregation problems. We lump carry out inw with fine dining. Rather different business models and different cost structures. In Brookly, delivery costs are a huge part of the business. Midtown, less so. We (I) don’t know enough about this food delivery development to say much more than you already have.
Russian agents’ threat to family made Prigozhin call off Moscow advance
https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-agents-threat-family-made-204246993.html
Russian intelligence services threatened to harm the families of Wagner leaders before Yevgeny Prigozhin called off his advance on Moscow, according to UK security sources. It has also been assessed that the mercenary force had only 8,000 fighters rather than the 25,000 claimed and faced likely defeat in any attempt to take the Russian capital.
The power of the Wagner Group may have been overestimated but the disgusting evil of Putin has no bounds. No decent person would ever defend this war criminal.
Awwww…was somebody mean to pgl’s favorite freedom fighter? And here I thought pgl was apoplectic with outrage at Prigozhin’s human rights abuses!?! But that was before Prigozhin became a freedom fighter! Now all is forgiven! But, seriously, can you imagine that guy with his finger on the trigger of nukes.
Max Blumenthal and Wyatt Reed’s take on the farce: “Numerous serious casualties were incurred during Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s supposed “coup.” The Grayzone offers an in-depth look at the massacre carried out by some of America’s top Russia experts against their own credibility.”
“For just over 12 hours, everyone from former US ambassador to Russia and noted Hitler apologist Michael McFaul to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to neocon pundit Anne Applebaum exploded with seemingly libidinal excitement about a supposed “civil war” that was certain to feature “Russians…killing Russians,” along with “lots of casualties” and Putin “probably hiding somewhere.”
https://thegrayzone.com/2023/06/26/russias-civil-war-beltway-expert/
All that was missing was to have Zelensky wagging his third leg like he used to do on his Ukrainian TV show!
I see a lot of Hollywood movies in our future, all based on this farce. But nowhere will art be more entertaining than real life.
idk why so many in the anti Putin regimes from Kiev to foggy bottom think Russia can be toppled like hitler did France in 1940….
Jonny boy loves to lie about what others have said as he is too stupid to make a productive comment. I have consistently called out Prigozhin for his war crimes. Has Jonny boy ever done so or called out Putin? Of course not.
BTW – did McConnell’s most recent filibuster invade Cuba or Mexico?
The Grayzone? Try reading this troll:
https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/ad-aspi/2021-03/Strange%20bedfellows.pdf
Yes Jonny boy has a new gig – shilling for Xi’s oppressive government. ltr’s new BFF!
BTW I watched the interviews the Grayzone misrepresented. Hey Jonny boy – your Grayzone is almost as disgusting and dishonest as you are.
“noted Hitler apologist Michael McFaul”. This struck me as a disgusting lie and it turns out I was right:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10607415/Former-U-S-ambassador-Michael-McFaul-apologized-saying-Hitler-didnt-kill-ethnic-Germans.html?dg
The former U.S. ambassador to Russia has apologized for falsely suggesting that Adolf Hitler ‘didn’t kill ethnic Germans’ during the Holocaust as he condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in a video MSNBC later took down following controversy over the statement. Michael McFaul, who served as ambassador between 2012 to 2014, drew criticism on Friday night when he echoed the words he heard from a Russian journalist criticizing President Vladimir Putin. ‘One difference between Putin and Hitler is that Hitler didn’t kill ethnic Germans, German-speaking people,’ McFaul said on The Rachel Maddow Show. ‘Putin slaughters the very people he said he has come to liberate.’
McFaul is a well respected expert on the former Soviet Union. When he rightfully criticizes Putin’s war crimes, little Jonny boy decides he has to be a good pet poodle and so he smears McFaul with what is a disgusting lie. Nothing new – this is Jonny boy’s only purpose in life.
In Johnny’s world (which if Putin’s world with extra spittle), criticizing Putin IS the same as being a Hitler apologist. Johnny Putin is the top Godwin’s Law example anywhere.
Off topic, weird presidential politics –
Back in 2016 the two least popular popular candidates in the history of popularity polling ran for the presidency. The winner of the popular vote failed to win in the electoral college, and Donald Trump became the least popular newly-electrd president on record.
Joe Biden faced a large field of primary opponents in 2020, and argued successfully that his electability (his appeal to swing voters) was more important than the policies or popularity of other candidates.
The press is now full of reports of the voting public, including a majority of Democrats, worrying about Joe Biden’s ability to serve another term as President. That worry is apparently eroding his re-election prospects.
And here’s Mick Mulvaney, of all people, lobbying for Trump to stand aside because he’s unelectable:
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4065434-donald-trump-has-a-2024-math-problem/
Mulvaney obviously has a point; however much serial indictment is helping Trump among Republican primary voters, he has never had high approval among voters in general, and is losing ground.
538 gives Biden the advantage in higher approval ratings and lower disapproval ratings than Trump, but that’s not a reliable guide to electoral college outcomes:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/favorability/donald-trump/
So we’ve got two guys are seen as the inevitable candidate for their party, and both are unpopular. Aside from the fact that both have served as President, this is shaping up as a rerun of 2016.
The Heartland Institute?
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/heartland-institute/
QUESTIONABLE SOURCE
A questionable source exhibits one or more of the following: extreme bias, consistent promotion of propaganda/conspiracies, poor or no sourcing to credible information, a complete lack of transparency, and/or is fake news. Fake News is the deliberate attempt to publish hoaxes and/or disinformation for profit or influence (Learn More). Sources listed in the Questionable Category may be very untrustworthy and should be fact-checked on a per article basis. Please note sources on this list are not considered fake news unless specifically written in the reasoning section for that source. See all Questionable sources.
Overall, we rate the Heartland Institute Right Biased and Questionable based on promoting anti-science propaganda, lack of transparency with funding, and more than five failed fact checks by IFCN fact-checkers.
Detailed Report
Reasoning: Propaganda, Numerous Failed Fact Checks, Lack of Transparency
Bias Rating: RIGHT
Factual Reporting: LOW
Country: USA
Press Freedom Rank: MOSTLY FREE
Media Type: Organization/Foundation
Traffic/Popularity: Minimal Traffic
MBFC Credibility Rating: LOW CREDIBILITY
History
Founded in 1984, The Heartland Institute is an American conservative and libertarian public policy think tank that conducts work on education reform, government spending, taxation, healthcare, education, tobacco policy, global warming, hydraulic fracturing, information technology, and free-market environmentalism. According to their about page, “The Heartland Institute is one of the world’s leading free-market think tanks. It is a national nonprofit research and education organization based in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems.
The Heartland Foundation has been criticized by some scientific organizations such as the Union of Concerned Scientists, who said, “Heartland has a long history of intentionally trying to confuse the public on behalf of corporate sponsors.” The Heartland Foundation responded by stating, “This is absolutely false, malicious, and libelous. We have never compromised our principles or altered our research findings to satisfy or attract a corporate donor. UCS cites no evidence to back up this baseless claim.”
Read our profile on the United States government and media.
Funded by / Ownership
The Heartland Institute has received funding in the past from notable right-leaning institutions such as Exxon-Mobil, Charles G. Koch Foundation, and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. In the past, the Heartland Institute listed their donors; however, they stopped this practice based on this reasoning: “For many years, we provided a complete list of Heartland’s corporate and foundation donors on this Web site and challenged other think tanks and advocacy groups to do the same. To our knowledge, not a single group followed our lead.
However, critics who couldn’t or wouldn’t engage in fair debate over our ideas found the donor list a convenient place to find the names of unpopular companies or foundations, which they used in ad hominem attacks against us. Even reporters from time to time seemed to think reporting the identities of one or two donors–out of a list of hundreds–was a fair way of representing our funding or our motivation in taking the positions expressed in our publications. After much deliberation and with some regret, we now keep confidential the identities of all our donors.” Since they no longer list their donors, we are unable to determine their sources of funding.
Analysis / Bias
In review, The Heartland Institute’s primary mission is to advocate for corporations and minimal regulations. For example, they have advocated on behalf of the tobacco industry, claiming that “We argue that the public health community exaggerates the (smoking) risks to justify their calls for more regulations on businesses and higher taxes on smokers and that the risk of adverse health effects from second-hand smoke is dramatically less than for active smoking, with many studies finding no adverse health effects at all. These positions are supported by many prominent scientists and virtually all free-market think tanks.” While Heartland may be able to find a few scientists and virtually all free-market think tanks (who aren’t scientists) to claim that second-hand smoke is not very harmful, that goes entirely against the consensus of the science.
The Heartland Institute is a leading supporter of human-influenced climate change denial, and when it comes to climate change information, they have made numerous false or misleading claims. They have also made false claims when it comes to other political issues. They have failed numerous fact-checks. See below.
Failed Fact Checks
Work requirements “have been proven to help impoverished families move from dependency to self-sufficiency.” – MOSTLY FALSE
“Model outputs published in successive IPCC reports since 1990 project a doubling of CO2 could cause warming of up to 6°C by 2100. Instead, global warming ceased around the end of the twentieth century and was followed (since 1997) by 19 years of stable temperature. Earth has not warmed significantly for the past 18 years despite an 8 percent increase in atmospheric CO2.” – INACCURATE
“[climate models] systematically over-estimate the sensitivity of climate to carbon dioxide … and modelers exclude forcings and feedbacks that run counter to their mission.” – INCORRECT
“Solar forcings are not too small to explain twentieth century warming. In fact, their effect could be equal to or greater than the effect of CO2 in the atmosphere.” – INCORRECT
“Forward projections of solar cyclicity imply the next few decades may be marked by global cooling rather than warming, despite continuing CO2emissions.” – INCORRECT
Wildfires were worse in the early part of the 1900s than they are today – Mostly False
“NOAA makes it official. Last 8 years… global cooling.” – False
Additional CO2 has boosted crop yields. – Misleading
Overall, we rate the Heartland Institute Right Biased and Questionable based on promoting anti-science propaganda, lack of transparency with funding, and more than five failed fact checks by IFCN fact-checkers. (7/19/2016) Updated (D. Van Zandt 02/23/2023)
“So we’ve got two guys are seen as the inevitable candidate for their party, and both are unpopular. Aside from the fact that both have served as President, this is shaping up as a rerun of 2016.”
The Heartland Institute take down was supposed to a reply to CoRev’s latest lying. But you knew that.
Speaking of lying trolls – JohnH is proud that he voted for a Greenie helping to give us Trump as our 45th President. And Putin was so happy with Jonny boy, he flew Jonny to the Kremlin to be the pet poodle.
Yadda, yadda, yadda. My vote for neither of the two evils had nothing to do with the outcome. In my state many more people could have voted for neither evil without affecting the outcome. And if they had, it might have delivered a loud and clear message of disgust at the choices the two party duopoly foists on American voters. At some point this is going to have to happen.
As Putin’s adoring Pimp, we know the kind of candidate you prefer. One who could successfully make himself President for Life. One you could claim was interested in the welfare of his people, a peace loving man who would only invade another country because that country made him do it.
No mystery to your preferences. At some point, you’re hoping this will happen.
You are truly a moron. Had faux progressives such as you voted for Clinton – Trump would have lost the Electoral College. Everyone with a brain knows that but of course God never gave little Jonny a brain as he figured that would be a waste.
Yeah, I knew what happened. Thumbs and computer memory.
As to the election, don’t get me wrong – I think Biden has done well as President. But running a successful, unpopular candidate against a criminal, unpopular candidate isn’t my idea of good risk management.
Ducky wrote: “ So we’ve got two guys are seen as the inevitable candidate for their party, and both are unpopular. Aside from the fact that both have served as President, this is shaping up as a rerun of 2016.”
Or maybe 1968? Tricky Dicky vs. Heeburt Whobert, (or whatever his name was), the guy who didn’t have enough integrity to stand with the majority of Democratic primary voters against the pointless and futile war in Vietnam, preferring to the lick the boots of LBJ and Richard Daly. You can expect an astute GOP candidate to have a “plan” (insincere) to end the war in Ukraine, particularly if the economy goes bad for workers and money continues to be poured down the Ukrainian rathole.
That’s just stupid. You want to connect Biden to the Vietnam War? Biden wasn’t in office during that war. And by the way, he got us out of Afghanistan, following through on a Trump decision. In the process, Biden made clear that adventurist wars would not be part of his foreign policy. If you really believed what you claim to believe, you’d be singing Biden’s praises. Instead, you sing Putin’s.
You’ve written a bunch of nonsense – again.
Ask this troll about McConnell’s latest filibuster. Did he invade Cuba or Mexico?
Vietnam? The war you never could be bothered to protest? Humphrey would have ended that war before the spring of 1969. LBJ in fact was trying to do so but Nixon’s pals in the State Department did all they could to poison peace negotiations. But leave it to Putin’s pet poodle to celebrate a traitor like Nixon.
pgl just loves to rewrite history! ” Humphrey would have ended that war before the spring of 1969. ”
Yeah, right! Where’s the proof?
Dude – HHH was opposed to this stupid war from day one. Now you may not know that as you are clearly a Nixonian fanboy.
Jonny boy flunked American history. I guess he does not know of the years long campaign called Operation Rolling Thunder which was a serious problem during LBJ’s Vietnam buildup. Nor does he get Humphrey’s role in this October 31, 1968 Presidential Address:
https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/october-31-1968-remarks-cessation-bombing-north-vietnam
Then a few weeks ago, they entered a new and a very much more hopeful phase.
As we moved ahead, I conducted a series of very intensive discussions with our allies, and with the senior military and diplomatic officers of the United States Government, on the prospects for peace. The President also briefed our congressional leaders and all of the presidential candidates.
Last Sunday evening, and throughout Monday, we began to get confirmation of the essential understanding that we had been seeking with the North Vietnamese on the critical issues between us for some time. I spent most of all day Tuesday reviewing every single detail of this matter with our field commander, General Abrams, whom I had ordered home, and who arrived here at the White House at 2:30 in the morning and went into immediate conference with the President and the appropriate members of his Cabinet. We received General Abrams’ judgment and we heard his recommendations at some length.
Now, as a result of all of these developments, I have now ordered that all air, naval, and artillery bombardment of North Vietnam cease as of 8 a.m., Washington time, Friday morning.
I have reached this decision on the basis of the developments in the Paris talks.
And I have reached it in the belief that this action can lead to progress toward a peaceful settlement of the Vietnamese war.
I have already informed the three presidential candidates, as well as the congressional leaders of both the Republican and the Democratic Parties of the reasons that the Government has made this decision.
This decision very closely conforms to the statements that I have made in the past concerning a bombing cessation.
It was on August 19th that the President said: “This administration does not intend to move further until it has good reason to believe that the other side intends seriously”—seriously—”to join us in deescalating the war and moving seriously toward peace.”
And then again on September 10th, I said: “The bombing will not stop until we are confident that it will not lead to an increase in American casualties.”
The Joint Chiefs of Staff, all military men, have assured me—and General Abrams very firmly asserted to me on Tuesday in that early, 2:30 a.m. meeting—that in their military judgment this action should be taken now, and this action would not result in any increase in American casualties.
*****
We were close to a peace deal and we stopped that horrific bombing campaign. Alas voter likes JohnH made sure war monger Richard Nixon would soon become Commander and in Chief. And four more years of senseless killings all because we allow morons like JohnH vote.
Guess what – Putin is lying again. He is now blaming the “neo-Nazis” in Ukraine and the US for the attempted rebellion. Yea – we get why JohnH thinks it is OK to lie here. His master does it all the time.
did you listen to blinken on the tube yesterday……
Yeah, I know, the US NEVER sponsored a coup attempt! pgl wants you to believe nonsense like that.
“ The U.S. tried to change other countries’ governments 72 times during the Cold War.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/12/23/the-cia-says-russia-hacked-the-u-s-election-here-are-6-things-to-learn-from-cold-war-attempts-to-change-regimes/
What would be truly amazing is if the US refused to try and organize a coup against Putin. IMO the main thing that has changed since the Cold War is that the US has gotten better at covering its tracks and making sure it has plausible deniability.
Johnny? Where exactly did pgl take the position you have attributed to him? It looks like you have once again assigned straw-man views to pgl. Johnny! That’s so dishonest.
How about this – how about you stop lying about other people views and address their actual, stated positions? You know, honest discussion?
I just wish Jonny boy would actually READ his own links such as this line:
‘These 72 U.S. operations were during the Cold War — meaning that, in most cases, the Soviet Union was covertly supporting anti-U.S. forces on the other side.’
Something tells me Jonny boy was hoping someone like Stalin would rule the entire world. Oh wait – Putin fancies himself as today’s Stalin. And we know how Jonny adores Putin’s war crimes.
Hasn’t the US been telling everyone that Ukraine has the right to ally itself with whomever it wants? Of course, that BS is null and void if Ukraine allies itself with anyone but the US…as evidenced by the 72 coups during the Cold War.
In fact, many of those coup attempts, like the ones in Guatemala and Iran, the underlying motivation had to do with US commercial interests, though communism was the excuse.
“The Guatemalan Revolution began in 1944, after a popular uprising toppled the military dictatorship of Jorge Ubico. Juan José Arévalo was elected president in Guatemala’s first democratic election. He introduced a minimum wage and near-universal suffrage, and turned Guatemala into a democracy. Arévalo was succeeded in 1951 by Árbenz, who instituted land reforms which granted property to landless peasants.[1] The Guatemalan Revolution was disliked by the United States federal government, which was predisposed during the Cold War to see it as communist. This perception grew after Árbenz had been elected and formally legalized the communist Guatemalan Party of Labour.
The United Fruit Company (UFC), whose highly profitable business had been marginally affected by the slight softening of highly exploitative labor practices in Guatemala, engaged in an influential lobbying campaign to persuade the U.S. to overthrow the Guatemalan government.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat
JohnH
June 27, 2023 at 4:02 pm
Hasn’t the US been telling everyone that Ukraine has the right to ally itself with whomever it wants?
Hey dude – this same holds for Finland and Sweden. Neither applied to enter NATO until your boy invaded Ukraine. Guess what troll? Both are now becoming members of NATO. Your boy is a war criminal and the rest of Eastern Europe knows it needs to band together so they do not become victims of the war crimes that you get off on.
Is this schmo getting a free holiday in East San Fran?? I used to go to San Mateo every week when I drove the semi and I didn’t even get a damned T-shirt. Jeez the things a PhD education gets you in this crazy world. I want a refund on my Cap’n Crunch cereal box Bachelor’s. And I thought my steel license plate from Wheaties was a gyp.
Educational attainment among 13-year olds is in dismal shape. Covid apparently played a role. Must be those lockdowns, right? Well, the worst declines in educational attainment are aligned geographically with the highest Covid death rates, which are aligned with co-morbidity factors and low vaccination rates.
Taking Covid seriously has a number of advantages. Which is sort of the same as saying government intervention can have a number of advantages.
@ Macroduck
I realize I’m “preaching to the choir” here, but just to make the point:
Let’s say for a moment that the school lockdowns temporarily damaged reading and math skills. Debatable, but a relatively safe assumption. Near certain. I don’t think any “dirty liberals” would argue that (quite the contrary). The next question is how many deaths of children with poor immune systems, teachers with poor immune systems, and connected parties’ deaths is that worth?? Is say 1,000 deaths worth having 8% higher math skills for Grade X?? Let’s measure number of deaths vs percentage drop in math skills and have MAGA tell us when the numbers make sense to have lockdowns. Because most of us have figured out MAGA and Republicans don’t give a flying crap how many people die from Covid-19/pandemic XYZ as long as it’s not someone in THEIR family.
You remember all the folks, some who commented here, who were of the view that some people just had to die so the rest of us could eat in restaurants and fly on airplanes. Old people had to die. Immune compromised people had to die. Overweight people had to die. It’s the cost of doing business. But no vaccine requirements, ’cause freedom.
Byt the way, where ya been?
I still hover over the site skimming, just commenting a little less. I mowed my neighbor’s lawn today while he is on vacation with his kids. It was kind of an “I owe you” for things he had done, but still made me feel good to do that. Cutting overgrown branches in my own backyard and trying to figure out how to get rid of them without being charged by the city.
I’m kind of upset over the current state of economics, the Isabella Weber thing really got under my skin. And I’m a little tired of “mainstream economists” or “orthodox” economists “coincidentally”/conveniently providing the slapdown on any idea which portrays corporations for what they largely are~~Outfits which suck the life out of society and do more to provide barriers to hardwork and new ideas, than incentives or rewards. I’m a little tired of play games with graphs that say “might is right” and “if you didn’t get ahead in life, it means you’re lazy and/or dumb”. I’m just a little tired of the same running storyline from economists. The Krugman comment on Weber was way out of line, way out of line, and the apology had no meaning, because Krugman only gave it because of his career based fears over attacking a female economist. The apology NEVER would have came if Weber was male—i.e. Krugman’s apology to Weber was both insincere AND disingenuous
Contrary to Rosser’s opinion and others’ assumptions of me on this blog, I strongly dislike personal conflict. It creates a lot of internal angst for me, and it’s not healthy. I avoid personal conflict at all costs. I’d probably walk the outside borders of a college campus just to avoid arguing or blowing up at a Barkley Rosser type. And I don’t want to blow up at Menzie or argue ad nauseam. it’s just tiresome.
This comment happens to be incorrect, and importantly incorrect:
[ https://econbrowser.com/archives/2023/06/the-term-spread-1970-2023m06#comment-300582
June 22, 2023
JohnH is a recent comment said both the dumbest thing I have ever read and the most dishonest thing too. The dumb? Jonny boy wants defense spending to return to Trumpian levels to balance the budget. You guessed it – defense spending was higher under Trump than under Biden but Jonny boy is too dumb to know that. ]
Apparently, China wants the U.S. to spend less on its military. Hmmm… Isn’t China’s military budget the second largest in the world, right behind the U.S.? Maybe that explains why ltr is so eager to fuss about U.S. military spending.
Is this a hint that ltr = “let tyranny reign” and JohnH are the same commenter?? Or working together at the same troll farm?? Why the strange need to defend??
We’ve been told they both commented incessantly on Thoma’s old site. Isn’t that also a very strange coincidence??
Are pgly and Ducky really shills for the merchants of death? The US spends more on “defense” than the next 10 biggest spenders worldwide…but it’s never enough for pgl and Ducky! And they could care less how much gets wasted!
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/10/infographic-us-military-presence-around-the-world-interactive
JohnH
June 27, 2023 at 8:54 am
Are pgly and Ducky really shills for the merchants of death?
Moses properly calls you and ltr out as liars and what does little Jonny boy do? Prove Moses’s point.
Dude – how effing stupid can you be?
Cool Glenn Beck impression, Johnny.
“Is ISIS really behind the rise in CEO pay? I don’t know I’m just asking the question.”
pgl is still denying that the nuclear modernization program amounts to $600 billion…and rising, as is typical of “defense” projects.
https://www.gao.gov/nuclear-weapons-and-forces-sustainment-and-modernization
But the real question for Ducky and pgly is: do we really need more and better nukes? Aren’t the ones have have enough to end civilization as we know it? Why not spend the money on deficit reduction or addressing social needs?
(you’ll never get an answer from pgly and Ducky, only that they “talk frequently” about that or “addressed it at some point in the distant past.”)
Neocons would be very pleased with “good Americans” like them.
Modernizing the nation’s nuclear delivery systems and weapons to ensure they remain effective, safe, and reliable is an extraordinarily complex job that requires significant resources—over $600 billion through 2030.
Dude – learn the art of reading and writing. Your writing keeps suggesting this spending is running at $600 billion a year. I kept saying this $600 billion figure was for the entire decade. Your link proves you LIED and I got this right.
Seriously Jonny boy – you really do not need to keep reminding us that you are the dumbest troll EVER.
JohnH
Modernizing the nation’s nuclear delivery systems and weapons to ensure they remain effective, safe, and reliable is an extraordinarily complex job that requires significant resources
Yep. Of course, the alternative is even more expensive.
I’m afraid that the 1970s were so long ago that people don’t remember (assuming they ever knew in the first place) just how complicated all that nuclear wargaming stuff is. They’ve forgotten about “throw weight” and the “yield to the two-thirds power” rule and why accuracy is so important. They’ve also forgotten about the reliability of ballistic missiles. Back in the 1960s and 1970s we had Titan missile bases scattered all over the country. Each base had 9 missiles. Why 9 missiles? Because test data showed that each base needed 9 missiles in order to be 90% confident that at least one missile would launch when the balloon went up. So we migrated to the more reliable Minuteman missiles. And since then we’ve improved their reliability. Why? Because you don’t have a credible MAD threat if the Russians don’t believe your missiles are reliable. And people have forgotten why we have a Triad strategic system (i.e., bombers, land-based ICBMs and sea-based missiles). Each one by itself provides deterrence, but if you have one and only one leg of the Triad, then it’s relatively easy to launch a first-strike and that takes out the deterrent. And the problem is slightly more complicated, but still solvable, if you only have two legs of the Triad; however, you have to continually reposition those assets in order to provide enough warning. You also have to continually improve the safeguards so that you don’t have an accidental launch. Back in the Nixon years we were so worried about the reliability of Soviet launch systems that we quietly “leaked” highly secret documents describing our launch systems in the hope that the Soviets would use ours instead of theirs. We wanted them to use ours because we didn’t trust theirs.
You can’t sit pat with the same old nuclear arsenal. It’s game theory, which means that each side reacts to what the other side does. And the game is always ongoing. Yes, it sucks. Yes, it’s expensive as hell. Get over it.
@ JohnH
Quick trivia question: Which nation, west of the Pacific Ocean, has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world??
BTW, your response is not reassuring that you and “ltr” are different people, or are not working at the same troll farm.
https://apps.bea.gov/iTable/?reqid=19&step=2&isuri=1&categories=survey#eyJhcHBpZCI6MTksInN0ZXBzIjpbMSwyLDNdLCJkYXRhIjpbWyJjYXRlZ29yaWVzIiwiU3VydmV5Il0sWyJOSVBBX1RhYmxlX0xpc3QiLCI1Il1dfQ==
May 25, 2023
Defense spending was 58.0% of federal government consumption and investment in 2020. *
$882.4 / $1,520.6 = 58.0%
Defense spending was 22.5% of all government consumption and investment in 2020.
$882.4 / $3,928.9 = 22.5%
Defense spending was 4.2% of GDP in 2020.
$882.4 / $21.060.5 = 4.2%
* Billions of dollars
https://apps.bea.gov/iTable/?reqid=19&step=2&isuri=1&categories=survey#eyJhcHBpZCI6MTksInN0ZXBzIjpbMSwyLDNdLCJkYXRhIjpbWyJjYXRlZ29yaWVzIiwiU3VydmV5Il0sWyJOSVBBX1RhYmxlX0xpc3QiLCI1Il1dfQ==
May 25, 2023
Defense spending was 55.6% of federal government consumption and investment in January through March 2023. *
$967.0 / $1,739.9 = 55.6%
Defense spending was 20.8% of all government consumption and investment in January through March 2023.
$967.0 / $4,654.9 = 20.8%
Defense spending was 3.7% of GDP in January through March 2023.
$967.0 / $26,486.3 = 3.7%
* Billions of dollars
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2023/One-pager%20on%20Heidi%27s%20paper-3.pdf
June 8, 2023
We Get What We Pay For:
The Cycle of Military Spending, Industry Power and Economic Dependence
By Heidi Peltier
The topline:
The United States consistently allocates most of its federal discretionary budget to the military. As a result, the military industry continues to gain disproportionately large amounts of power in the U.S. economy and political sphere, which in turn ensures continued growth in the military budget. This has the effect of squeezing out the resources and power of other sectors, and weakening the United States’ ability to perform core functions such as healthcare, infrastructure, education, and emergency preparedness. This perpetuates a vicious cycle: high military spending means the strong military sector will only continue to get political power and gain public trust, which will in turn ensure it receives disproportionate resources at the expense of other sectors, which means the military will take on roles that should go to other agencies, and the cycle repeats.
Discretionary Budget Authority By Agency
Fast facts:
● For Fiscal Year 2022, more than half of the discretionary budget went to national security spending.
● Of the money allocated to the Department of Defense, about half went to military contractors. About 30% of that went to the “Big 5” alone: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman.
● In 2022, the Department of Defense accounted for 34 percent of the civilian federal workforce, and Veterans Affairs made up another 20 percent, so that more than half of federal civilian employees are devoted to the military and veterans.
● The federal government workforce is comprised of about 3.5 million workers, if we include both civilians and uniformed active-duty personnel. Of this, about 72 percent is defense-related employment, including Department of Defense civilians, uniformed military personnel, and those working in Veterans Affairs. By comparison, the Department of Health and Human Services made up 4 percent of federal employees, and the Department of State only 1 percent.
● Dollar for dollar, spending on other sectors creates more jobs than spending on the military. Spending on other priorities such as clean energy, health care, or public education would create between 9 percent and 250 percent more jobs than the same amount of spending on the military.
Discretionary Spending Over Time
Job Creation In Each Sector Per $1M of Federal Spending
The bottom line:
In the same way that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, continuing to spend in this way will ensure that the military industrial sector grows at the expense of other, more generative economic sectors. This is a missed opportunity: reducing the military budget and funding other priorities such as healthcare, education, clean energy, and infrastructure will help increase other forms of security – the kind of meaningful human security rooted in good health, good living conditions, and a productive and well-educated society – while also increasing employment nationwide. *
* https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2023/Peltier%202023%20-%20We%20Get%20What%20We%20Pay%20For%20-%20FINAL%20-%200608.pdf
nominal pentagon spending rose from trump thru today.
idk where anyone thinks Orangeman was bad for Lockheed’s bottom line.
there are 100’s f-35 that need fixes to do any tactical mission and survive….
that observed the veteran affair dept budget is bigger than quoted prc military spending.
let’s do more business development for va hospitals!
“nominal pentagon spending rose”
Of course inflation adjusted spending fell in 2021 and in 2022. Thanks for reminding us that JohnH tells the stupidest lies ever!
@ Macroduck
“Blowback” was the term I couldn’t find in my head. Krugman was afraid of blowback which would overtake him, much the same way it hit Harald Uhlig. It was NOT a sincere/internalized feeling of sorrow for the words Krugman used to describe Weber and Weber’s work. It was completely 100% career based fears which, in essence, forced the Krugman apology. Nothing else. Just the true colors popping out.
Krugman showed himself. Just like AOC being absent on the Amazon labor union. Has Krugman said one word about NYT’s bullying of the journalist’s union and anti-union practices?? ONE word related to NYT’s anti-union actions?? Nope. that doesn’t pay Krugman’s bills at all. No “incentive” there.
Backlash is the term. Backlash. Third time is the charm. Someday I plan to learn the English language. Honest I do
KO?
Erik Poole: Korea.
Is this a hint that — = “let tyranny reign” and —– are the same commenter??
Is this a hint that — = “let tyranny reign” and —– are the same commenter??
Is this a hint that — = “let tyranny reign” and —– are the same commenter??
[ Notice that I am ceaselessly stalked, harassed, bullied and threatened by a reader who I do not and will not ever address. The harassment and bullying have been repeatedly profane and racial. ]
I protest. I want to officially protest this to my local Chinese Public Security Bureau (I think it’s about two blocks from here, surely. This is America after all, every city should have one).
https://safeguarddefenders.com/en/blog/14-governments-launch-investigations-chinese-110-overseas-police-service-stations
I only intermittently stalked, harassed, bullied and threatened “ltr = let tyranny reign”. Ceaselessly!?!?!?!?! The nerve to use the word “ceaselessly”…….. Hey bub, the PSB has your name now. Your code name in China’s PSB is now “Prigozhin 2.0”.
http://econbrowser.com/archives/2022/03/recession-talk#comment-271171
March 25, 2022
Han enslavers
Han enslavers
Han enslavers
Would the Han enslavers just torture
Would the Han enslavers just torture
Would the Han enslavers just torture
http://econbrowser.com/archives/2022/04/what-to-make-of-the-chinese-sovereign-yield-curve#comment-273255
April 26, 2022
Also those are not slaves in Xinjiang, they are all volunteering to make lollipops for Han people because of the Han’s benevolence to them of allowing Uighurs to breathe….
http://econbrowser.com/archives/2022/04/guest-contribution-energy-policies-can-be-both-geopolitical-and-green#comment-273471
April 28, 2022
Then there’s energy policies meant to support genocide….
Well, we can’t expect Beijing not to enthusiastically support mass murder can we?? It would be so out of character for them. It’s like Confucius once said: “You can take the villager out of the village, but you can’t take the amoralism out of the amoralist.”
[ Ceaseless racial harassment and bullying. ]
Aaaawww, poor “ltr”= let tyranny reign has had it rough the last few days. All this weekend Xi Jinping has been sobbing self-pitying tears endlessly begging ltr for the answer “Where is China’s Prigozhin?!?!?!?!?” “Where is China’s Prigozhin?!?!?!?!? Tell me NOW!!!!” And all ltr can say is “You saw it!!! You saw it!!! Hu Jintao got the indigestion!!!! Hu got the bad indigestion!!! You saw it!!! Hu Letire!!!! Hu Letire!!!”
Yes…… ltr = let tyranny reign is a good boy for Xi. Velly good boy.
As has been noted by our host, by commenters here and by a number of economists (despite Johnny pretending otherwise) profits have been a sizable contributor to inflation in the aftermath of Covid. The IMF has now taken a look at the role of profits in the Eurozone inflation:
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2023/06/23/Euro-Area-Inflation-after-the-Pandemic-and-Energy-Shock-Import-Prices-Profits-and-Wages-534837?cid=bl-com-WPIEA2023131
Here the blog post summarizing the article:
https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/06/26/europes-inflation-outlook-depends-on-how-corporate-profits-absorb-wage-gains
The authors note that profitability, as normally defined, needn’t increase in order for profits to play an increasing role in inflation. That’s why it’s useful for people with a good skill set, like these IMF types, to the up the subject.
My understanding is that profits as a share of gross revenue declined in the U.S. in 2022 after a big rise in 2021. Not sure that’s the case in the Eurozone.
Jonny boy noted this IMF paper. Of course Jonny boy never READ it which led this moron to write comments that were directly contradicted by this IMF paper.
So here’s the picture corporate profits as a share of GDP for the U.S.:
The decline began in Q3 of 2022 and Co tinued into Q1 of this year, but profits’ share of GDP remains high.
Could you please provide the link you intended here. It is important.
Oops:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=16A4l
For anyone actually trying to understand what happened, its pretty clear that higher prices were initially driven by supply chain issues. Then the fear of impending Russian invasion further drove up prices. The nitty gritty of exactly how much the increased hydrocarbon prices played into this and how much of that price increase was driven by Russian actions is going to be more difficult to assess. It is worth noting that NG price increases were very severe in Europe initially and was a price increase driver not seen in Asia and North America.
Fun fact. If we look at defense spending as a share of GDP, the US is at 3.9% (way too high) while Russia is at 4.1%. Of course Russia is engaged in ongoing war crimes so hey (which of course gets Jonny boy all excited).
Now Israel is at 4.5% but two of its Arab nations have defense/GDP at 7% or more.