Tag Archives: market

Economic Scene: The Hidden Benefits of Mitigating Climate Change

by Myrna Posted on September 23, 2014

The cost of curbing carbon emissions may be considerably cheaper than thought. Indeed, for all the fears that mitigation would put the brakes on growth, it might actually enhance it. More here:  Economic Scene: The Hidden Benefits of Mitigating Climate Change ; ; ;

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Economic Scene: The Hidden Benefits of Mitigating Climate Change

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New CO2 Emissions Report Shows China’s Central Role in Shaping World’s Climate Path

by Myrna Posted on September 23, 2014

Fresh data reveal the central role of China in driving the global buildup of greenhouse gases — and its daunting challenge if it chooses to cut emissions. Taken from: New CO2 Emissions Report Shows China’s Central Role in Shaping World’s Climate Path ; ; ;

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New CO2 Emissions Report Shows China’s Central Role in Shaping World’s Climate Path

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If You Want Good Workers, You Need to Pay Market Wages

by WillieSchulthei Posted on September 12, 2014

Mother Jones

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Today the Wall Street Journal is running yet another article about the inability of manufacturing companies to attract good employees. And Dean Baker is annoyed:

If employers can’t get enough workers then we would expect to see wages rising in manufacturing.

They aren’t. Over the last year the average hourly wage rose by just 2.1 percent, only a little higher than the inflation rate and slightly less than the average for all workers. This follows several years where wages in manufacturing rose less than the economy-wide average….If an employer wants to hire people she can get them away from competitors by offering a higher wage. It seems that employers in the manufacturing sector may need this simple lesson in market economic to solve their skills shortage problem.

The chart on the right shows what Baker is talking about. It’s a slightly different series than the one he uses in his post, but it makes the same point. Manufacturing wages are rising more slowly than in the rest of the economy. If manufacturing companies are really desperate for qualified workers, they have a funny way of showing it.

Now, it’s possible that what they really mean is that they don’t think they can be competitive if they have to pay higher wages. So they want lots of well-qualified employees to work for below-market wages. And who knows? That’s possible. But if that’s really the problem, then apprentice programs and skills training aren’t likely to solve it.

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If You Want Good Workers, You Need to Pay Market Wages

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Here’s What We Saw on the Ferguson Livestreams Last Night

by KristiaOquinn Posted on August 19, 2014

Mother Jones

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The situation in Ferguson continued to deteriorate Monday night. The curfew imposed by Gov. Jay Nixon was lifted Monday as he called in the National Guard to help police the area. We kept tabs on the livestreams coming from Moustafa Hussein at Argus Radio (embedded below) and Tim Pool at Vice News (rewatch the feed here). See below for more updates as events unfolded.

Updates:

1:06 a.m. CDT, Argus: Hussein and other media are gathered in the designated press area outside the protest area, waiting for updates. We’re signing off for the night, but check back in the morning for more updates.

12:45 a.m. CDT, Argus: Hussein and his colleague are turned away at another entry point to the protest area. There appears to be a lot of confusion over where journalists and protestors can and can’t go. As the Washington Post’s Wesley Lowery tweeted earlier:

12:15 a.m. CDT, Argus: “Something is happening in the neighborhood and they’re keeping media completely away from it,” Hussein says. “Every time we get to the street that officers told us to go to, we’re being told to go to another area.”

11:53 p.m. CDT, Vice: Vice’s Tim Pool trying to get into press area but can’t find his credential. Officer: “Credentials.” Pool: “I lost it when I was getting shot at.” Officer: “Well you’re not getting through.” (Officer rips off “PRESS” decal on Pool’s vest) “This doesn’t mean shit.”

11:52 p.m. CDT, Argus: Police officers appear to arrest several protesters. One officer tells the Argus reporter that all media needs to go up 2.5 miles back to the press area near the Target store, apologizing for the inconvenience. “We don’t get told much,” the officer says. Meanwhile:

11:45 p.m. CDT, Argus: Police repeatedly tell protesters: “Everyone on the Ferguson-Market parking lot needs to leave immediately or you will be subject to arrest, with the exception of credentialed media. Do it now. Or you will be subject to arrest.” Moments later, a line of police officers proceeds down the street, holding up their weapons:

11:41 p.m. CDT, Vice: Tim Pool, Vice News reporter, to officer: “Are there live shots?” Officer: “Yes. Bad guys shot. We didn’t shoot.”

11:30 p.m. CDT, Argus: Police ask media to shut off the lights on their cameras.

11 p.m. CDT, Vice: Police begin deploying smoke, tear gas, and flash bang grenades. Vice reporter Tim Pool, who is filming the feed, says he was hit in the leg by a rubber bullet.

10:40 CDT, Argus: Police rush in and grab two protesters, one a woman who can be heard saying she is trying to get home.

10:20 CDT, Argus: Protest leaders are able to calm an increasingly tense situation by moving media and protesters out of the street and onto the sidewalk after police give indications they might move on the crowd.

10pm CDT, Argus: Antonio French, a local alderman, can be seen trying to calm down several aggressive protesters, and keeping media from getting too close to police. The police have also deployed, on and off, a noise device to try and disperse the crowd. Read our interview with French here.

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Here’s What We Saw on the Ferguson Livestreams Last Night

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Top 10 People That Benefit from a Weakened Renewable Fuel Standard

by Posted on August 8, 2014

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Top 10 People That Benefit from a Weakened Renewable Fuel Standard

Posted 8 August 2014 in

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For months, the EPA has debated the 2014 Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which sets the amount of affordable, cleaner-burning fuels used in America’s fuel supply. Now — thanks to pressure from oil companies and their allies — they’re on the verge of weakening the RFS. That would harm American farmers, workers, and small business owners whose jobs depend on this homegrown industry.

Like high gas prices? How about cleaning up oil spills? Are you a Koch brother? If not, you’re one of the millions of Americans who benefits from cleaner air, lower gas prices, and more fuel choices as a result of the RFS. Since 2005, the RFS has opened up the market to new fuel sources, supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs and reducing our dependence on foreign oil.

The stakes on this issue are high. That’s especially true for those who would benefit from weakening the Renewable Fuel Standard. And who are they? Well:

  1. Supertankers: Cutting production of U.S. renewables means more oil imports.
  2. Big Oil Execs: Ethanol is affordable. Less in your tank means more in big oil’s wallets.
  3. Asthma Inhaler Manufacturers: Biofuels improve air quality. Cutting the RFS equals dirtier fuel and dirtier air.
  4. The Air Conditioning Industry: Cutting renewable fuel = more CO2 = climate change. Time to upsize your AC unit.
  5. Persian Gulf Realtors: Less American fuel = pumping more dollars overseas.
  6. China and Brazil: Killing the RFS means advanced biofuel investments go overseas instead.
  7. The Dowager Countess (from Downton Abbey): Afraid of change? Killing the RFS kills investment in American innovation.
  8. Oil Spill Cleanup Crews: There were 6000 oil spills in 2012. That’s 16 a day.
  9. The Koch Brothers: Filling up on fossil fuels fills up their pockets.
  10. Gondoliers: Climate change = more sunken cities.

The only way we can counter the millions that Big Oil is spending is by setting the record straight. Weakening the RFS will hurt our environment — and hurt our wallets.

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Top 10 People That Benefit from a Weakened Renewable Fuel Standard

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Thomas Piketty Says That r > g. But Is It, Really?

by CarleyFreehill Posted on May 14, 2014

Mother Jones

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I’ve mentioned before that I have a few misgivings about Thomas Piketty’s thesis in Capital in the 21st Century. One of my misgivings is pretty basic: Piketty argues that r (the return on capital) is historically greater than g (the economic growth rate). Since the rich own most of the capital, this means that the rich accumulate wealth faster than everyone else, which in turn means that rising income inequality is inevitable. But as capital accumulates, surely the return on capital should decline? After all, that’s what happens in every other market when there’s a glut of supply.

Piketty briefly addresses this objection, and concludes that although r will indeed decrease as capital accumulates, it won’t decrease much. But is that true? Larry Summers doesn’t think so:

Piketty’s rather fatalistic and certainly dismal view of capitalism can be challenged on two levels. It presumes, first, that the return to capital diminishes slowly, if at all, as wealth is accumulated and, second, that the returns to wealth are all reinvested. Whatever may have been the case historically, neither of these premises is likely correct as a guide to thinking about the American economy today.

Economists universally believe in the law of diminishing returns. As capital accumulates, the incremental return on an additional unit of capital declines. The crucial question goes to what is technically referred to as the elasticity of substitution….Piketty argues that the economic literature supports his assumption that returns diminish slowly (in technical parlance, that the elasticity of substitution is greater than 1), and so capital’s share rises with capital accumulation. But I think he misreads the literature by conflating gross and net returns to capital. It is plausible that as the capital stock grows, the increment of output produced declines slowly, but there can be no question that depreciation increases proportionally. And it is the return net of depreciation that is relevant for capital accumulation. I know of no study suggesting that measuring output in net terms, the elasticity of substitution is greater than 1, and I know of quite a few suggesting the contrary.

There are other objections to Piketty’s thesis, but it seems to me that this is one of the key criticisms—perhaps the key criticism. If r > g isn’t inevitably true, or even if it’s only slightly true (that is, r is only slightly greater than g), then everything falls apart. I suspect that this is going to be one of the main technical battlegrounds in the macro literature as Piketty’s theory gets hashed out over the next few years.

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Thomas Piketty Says That r > g. But Is It, Really?

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Quote of the Day: If We Don’t Like Your Gun, You Should Not Be Allowed to Sell It to Anyone

by IngeborgTeague Posted on April 28, 2014

Mother Jones

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From Lawrence Keane, general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for gun manufacturers:

They tried to put the product on the market, and the market reacted.

I know that “Orwellian” is overused, but what else can you call this? The product in question is a “smart gun,” which can only be fired by its registered owner. A company called Armatix put one on the market—you know, the market, a place where people can voluntarily buy or decline to buy products depending on whether they want them—and the gun lobby went ballistic:

Belinda Padilla does not pick up unknown calls anymore, not since someone posted her cellphone number on an online forum for gun enthusiasts. A few fuming-mad voice mail messages and heavy breathers were all it took. Then someone snapped pictures of the address where she has a P.O. box and put those online, too. In a crude, cartoonish scrawl, this person drew an arrow to the blurred image of a woman passing through the photo frame. “Belinda?” the person wrote. “Is that you?”

Her offense? Trying to market and sell a new .22-caliber handgun that uses a radio frequency-enabled stopwatch to identify the authorized user so no one else can fire it. Ms. Padilla and the manufacturer she works for, Armatix, intended to make the weapon the first “smart gun” for sale in the United States.

….The National Rifle Association, in an article published on the blog of its political arm, wrote that “smart guns,” a term it mocks as a misnomer, have the potential “to mesh with the anti-gunner’s agenda, opening the door to a ban on all guns that do not possess the government-required technology.”

According to Keane, this is the market “reacting.” It’s certainly heartwarming to see such dedication to free enterprise.

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Quote of the Day: If We Don’t Like Your Gun, You Should Not Be Allowed to Sell It to Anyone

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An Update From Our 1 Percent World: Southern California Housing Edition

by genestrong2484 Posted on April 16, 2014

Mother Jones

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The LA Times reports that the Southern California housing market is once again getting frothy:

But a deeper look at the market reveals a recovery divided between the rich and everyone else.

The market for high-dollar homes is hopping, with sales on the rise and buyers launching bidding wars. But sales of low- to medium-priced homes have plummeted during the same period — with many potential buyers priced out….Those declines came even as sales of high-end homes increased. Sales of homes costing $800,000 or more grew 12%, while sales of homes costing less than $500,000 fell at twice that rate.

….”We’re getting multiple offers on just about everything,” said Barry Sulpor, an agent with Shorewood Realtors in Manhattan Beach, where he said there is a new wave of tear-downs and new construction in prime beachfront locations. “The market is really on fire.”

I think partly this is a bit of a statistical artifact: a lot of investors were buying cheap houses a year ago, figuring they could rent them out and make a killing. That didn’t work out so well, and now a lot of those houses are back on the market. Long story short, some of the increase in low-end housing prices over the past year or two has been a bit of an investor-fueled mirage, and now reality is catching up to that.

Still, the overall picture is clear: At the lower end of the market, ordinary people have been increasingly locked out for a while, and that’s still the case. Nor is it any surprise. After all, median wages have stagnated during the entire period that we so laughingly refer to as a “recovery.” As always in our brave new 1 percent era, things are going pretty well for the rich. For the not-so-rich, not so well.

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An Update From Our 1 Percent World: Southern California Housing Edition

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"Markets" Weren’t Rattled Yesterday. It Was Just the Usual Few Morons Overreading the Tea Leaves.

by Bart Jameson Posted on March 20, 2014

Mother Jones

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James Pethokoukis summarizes the conventional wisdom about Janet Yellen’s first run-in with the media yesterday:

A “market rattling” press-conference performance from Janet Yellen, and Wall Street is suddenly thick with Ben Bernanke nostalgia. “The more experienced Bernanke knew to avoid clarifying deliberately vague statement language,” wrote JPMorgan economist Michael Feroli in a research note. Feroli was referencing Yellen’s squishy, off-the-cuff remark that interest rate hikes might start earlier rather than later next year, or “about six months” after the end of the central bank’s bond buying program. A “rookie gaffe” is how economist Paul Edelstein of IHS Global Insight put it.

You can find about a million stories like this. But as much as I like to mock the panicky nature of Wall Street traders, I think everyone needs to take a deep breath here. As you can see in the chart above, the S&P 500 lost a whopping 1 percent of its value for a grand total of about 24 hours. By 1 pm today it was right back where it had been for the two days prior to the Fed meeting.

The numbers tell the tale: It’s pretty obvious that Yellen, in fact, had only a tiny, transient effect on the market—exactly the same kind of effect Bernanke used to have whenever analysts trained their Wittgensteinian microscopes on, say, the precise linguistic difference between “extended” and “protracted.” In the end, a few morons lost money by overreacting to Yellen’s comments, and that’s about it. This is not exactly a rare event in global high finance.

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"Markets" Weren’t Rattled Yesterday. It Was Just the Usual Few Morons Overreading the Tea Leaves.

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Comcast-Time Warner Merger Really Has Nothing to do With You and Me

by hoseawilder7387 Posted on February 14, 2014

Mother Jones

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Via Matt Yglesias, I see that Matthew Klein has finally written a short post that explains what’s really behind the Comcast-Time Warner merger:

To understand what the deal is really about, remember that pay-TV distributors are at the mercy of the networks that sell programming. According to Bloomberg Industries analyst Paul Sweeney, about half your cable bill goes to companies such as Viacom Inc. and Walt Disney Co. The networks consistently raise prices about 10 percent a year on average, irrespective of the state of the economy. By contrast, the typical cable bill only goes up by about 5 percent a year. Cable companies have eaten the difference by lowering their margins and cutting costs elsewhere, but there are limits to both processes.

This margin squeeze is why Time Warner Inc. spun off its cable business, why Comcast acquired NBC Universal, and why Internet-based subscription services offered by Netflix Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. have invested in original programming as a defense against the rising cost of licensing content. It also explains why Time Warner Cable had to cave to demands for higher fees from CBS Corp. a few months ago. Merging the two biggest cable operators might give them more bargaining power with the networks, especially if it encourages DIRECTV and Dish Network Corp. to consolidate the satellite business.

In the same way that the health care business can largely be understood as a competition between suppliers (hospitals, pharma, etc.) and consumers (insurance companies), the video entertainment business should largely be understood as a competition between content producers (Disney, Viacom, etc.) and content distributors (Comcast, Verizon, etc.). Ideally, you want competition everywhere. That is, you want enough producers that they compete with each other; enough distributors that they compete with each other; and enough balance between the two that neither producers nor distributors have the whip hand against the other.

So the question we should be asking about the Comcast-Time Warner merger is simple: Do content distributors need more clout? Klein suggests they do: they’re at the mercy of rapacious networks who keep raising carriage fees and they don’t have the market power to fight back. The merger will help that.

That may be, but I’d like to hear more about this. Networks and cable companies fight constantly, as you know if you’ve ever seen dueling ads about why your favorite shows will soon be off the air in your area. The networks run ads telling people that if they don’t want to miss the next episode of CSI, they better call their cable company and tell them to knock off the gamesmanship. The cable companies run ads insisting that the network is jacking up rates unconscionably and everyone should besiege them with demands that they be more reasonable. Usually this continues until about one minute before the current contract runs out, at which point both sides make a deal. Occasionally it goes longer, and certain shows really are blacked out for a while.

If you’ve ever had trouble figuring out which side is really at fault in one of these battles of the titans, well, that’s the problem. Two mega-corporations are duking it out, and the rest of us are just caught in the middle. From a consumer point of view, part of the problem is that we’ve all been trained to hate the cable companies who send us outrageous bills every month and love the content producers who make all the shows we love. But don’t fall for that: it’s just an artifact of which business happens to be customer facing. The truth is that both sides are big, soulless corporations who have no claim on your emotions. That said, I’d normally take Klein’s side of this except for one thing: would a bigger Comcast really have more negotiating clout than they do now? I guess that’s possible, but they have a helluva lot of clout already. No network can afford to be shut out of Comcast’s market for long. So it’s not clear to me that a bigger Comcast would really do much for the rest of us.

In any case, that’s how to think of this stuff. Practically every big battle you see in the media arena is, one way or another, a battle between gigantic producers on the one hand and gigantic distributors on the other. That’s what net neutrality is all about. That’s what copyright battles are all about. That’s what broadband fights are all about. And that’s what this merger is all about. We are all just pawns watching the fireworks.

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Comcast-Time Warner Merger Really Has Nothing to do With You and Me

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