Veren of Lood biedt u op zondag wekelijks een inkijkje in (minstens) 10 belangrijke of informatieve artikelen en interviews die de voorafgaande 7 dagen op economisch terrein verschenen op onafhankelijke sites.

De kop is de link naar het oorspronkelijke artikel, waarvan de eerste (twee) alinea’s hier gegeven zijn.

Sinds begin december nemen we ook een paar extra links op naar artikelen die minder specialistische kennis vereisen. Deze met *** gemerkte artikelen zijn ons inziens ook interessant voor lezers met weinig basiskennis van economie.

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I was asked: Whatever Happened to Inflation after all this Money-Printing? – Wolf Richter
27 december
So where’s my free lunch?
I was asked once again why all this central-bank “money-printing” along with global zero-interest-rate or even negative-interest-rate policies haven’t caused a big bout of inflation, considering how currencies are getting watered down.
It’s a crucial question that baffled many minds for a while, but now, as this thing has been dragging out for seven years, bouncing from one major central bank to the next, without end in sight, the answer is becoming clearer.
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Why Capitalists Are Repeatedly “Fooled” By Business Cycles – Frank Shostak
21 december
According to the Austrian business cycle theory (ABCT) the artificial lowering of interest rates by the central bank leads to a misallocation of resources because businesses undertake various capital projects that — prior to the lowering of interest rates —weren’t considered as viable. This misallocation of resources is commonly described as an economic boom.
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The challenge of maintaining high quality and relevant economic statistics – Sir Charles Bean
22 december
Economic statistics are an important public good and governments typically recognise this by supporting their production, ideally through an independent agency. But producing reliable and meaningful statistics is by no means easy. In this column, former Bank of England Deputy Governor Charles Bean presents the findings from his forthcoming report on the UK’s current and future statistical needs. Addressing the challenge of measuring a modern dynamic economy not only requires statistical organisations to have the right skills, methods and technological systems – they also need to be pro-active and creative, curious and self-critical.
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If We Don’t Change the Way Money Is Created and Distributed, We Change Nothing – Charles Hugh Smith
24 december
The only real solution in my view is to create and distribute money at the base of the pyramid rather than to those in the top of the pyramid.
Many well-intended people want to reform the status quo for all sorts of worthy reasons: to reduce wealth inequality, restore democracy, create good-paying jobs, and so on.
All these goals are laudable, but if we don’t change the way money is created and distributed, nothing really changes: wealth inequality will keep rising, governance will remain a bidding process of the wealthy, wages will continue stagnating, etc.
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Everything Central Banks Have Tried Has Failed: According To Citi’s Buiter Just One Thing Remains – Tyler Durden
26 december
Seven years after ZIRP (then NIRP) was launched and central banks grew their balance sheets by $13 trillion, in the process inflating the biggest bubble the world has ever seen, sending risk prices to record highs and trillions in government debt to record negative yields, first the Fed admitted QE was a mistake, and now the investment banks – especially those who were bailed out and were the biggest beneficiaries of QE such as Citigroup – admit central bank quantitative easing failed.
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*** Central Banks Have Pushed the Middle Class Down into Neofeudal Serfdom – Charles Hugh Smith
21 december
The injustice of central-bank enforced neofeudalism cannot be suppressed like interest rates.
In traditional feudal systems, serfs were the landless peasantry who worked the land of their feudal lords in exchange for protection. In our present-day neofeudal system, serfdom has a different definition: present-day serfs own little or no productive capital and have few opportunities to ever acquire any.
The Marxist term wage-slaves describes those who, lacking capital, have only their labor to sell. This describes the vast majority of people in both capitalist and socialist systems, but what makes the present system neofeudal is the central banks: by extending essentially unlimited credit at near-zero interest rates to financiers and corporations, the central banks have given the top .01% the ability to outbid mere savers for income-producing assets (i.e. productive assets).
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The Most Profitable Work Will Be Automated: The Rest Will Be Left to Us – Charles Hugh Smith
23 december
A new system is self-organizing before our eyes. We just have to stop obstructing its rise and start facilitating its expansion in self-evident ways.
What’s abundant and what’s scarce? The question matters because as economist Michael Spence (among others) has noted, value and profits flow to what’s scarce. What’s in over-supply has little to no scarcity value and hence little to no profitability.
What’s abundant is unprofitable work, commoditized goods and services, and conventional labor and capital (which is why wages are declining and yields on capital are near-zero).
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Tax Oped – John Cochrane
23 december
“…Why is tax reform paralyzed? Because political debate mixes the goal of efficiently raising revenue with so many other objectives. Some want more progressivity or more revenue. Others defend subsidies and transfers for specific activities, groups or businesses. They hold reform hostage.
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Understanding the evolution of Japan’s exports – Willem Thorbecke
21 december
A good understanding of the evolution of exports over the years is crucial for the design of trade policy. This column dissects Japanese exports using a gravity model and concludes that it would be beneficial for Japanese companies to diversify their exports by shipping more to China, Europe, and South Korea.
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Dear Electric Company CEO: Merry Xmas and Cut the Dividend? – Leonard Hyman & William Tilles
22 december
Dear Jane/John CEO:
The party is over, again. Remember the diversification-for-growth bash? Utilities bought banks, insurance companies, real estate, oil wells and at least one tilapia fish farm, spent -hen- processing plant and gold mine. In the midst of the euphoria, legendary banker Carl Seligson asked, “How can you manage businesses that you don’t know anything about when you can’t manage businesses that you know about?” That party ended in tears. The boss ordered, “Back to basics”. That meant, “Sell more electricity”.
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*** Medieval Champagne fairs: Lessons for development – Sheilagh Ogilvie
23 december
A vocal set of economists argue that economies can succeed in the absence of strong state and public institutions. This column looks to the ‘Champagne fairs’ of medieval Europe for lessons in how important public institutions can be. Public authorities are crucial – for good or for ill. When rulers provided these as generalised institutional services to everyone, the Champagne fairs flourished. When they granted them to privileged groups only, trade declined and business moved elsewhere.
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Disclaimer: De VoL-redactie selecteert deze artikelen op interessante inzichten, of naar wij denken nuttige informatie. Wij kunnen echter geen enkele aansprakelijkheid aanvaarden voor de gevolgen van beslissingen die op grond hiervan door lezers zijn genomen, zakelijk zomin als privé.