US economy

2007/2008 Finansal Krizi’nden günümüze kadar geçen süre içerisinde yaşanan sosyo-iktisadi sorunların halen çözümlenememiş olması, mevcut ana akım paradigmanın çok boyutlu bir biçimde sorgulanmasını zorunlu kılmaktadır. Bu çerçevede güncel sorunlar, kapitalist birikim rejiminin 1980’lerden sonra değişen iç dinamiklerinin bir yansıması olarak okunmalıdır. Ekonomik, sosyal, politik ve kültürel alanlarda etkisini hissettiren bu değişim ve dönüşümlerin temelinde ise üç önemli gelişme yatmaktadır. Bunları temel başlıkları ile şu şekilde sıralayabiliriz: (i) Birikimin Finansallaşması; (ii) Neoliberal Politik Dönüşüm ve (iii) Sermayenin Tekelleşmesi. Günümüzün mevcut yapısı bu üç temel dinamik etrafında şekillenmekle birlikte, birikimin durgunlaşması ve buna bağlı olarak yaşanan ekonomik krizler başta olmak üzere birtakım ortak pratik eğilime maruz kalmaktadır. İşsizlik oranlarındaki artış, ekonomik büyüme hızında yavaşlama, hanehalkı ve finansal olmayan şirketlerin borçlanma düzeyindeki yükseliş, reel ücretlerde yaşanan durgunluk ve gelir dağılımında meydana gelen bozulma gibi sıralanabilecek bazı potansiyel sonuçların bu eğilime bağlı olarak
toplumsal işleyiş üzerinde önemli etkiler oluşturabileceği zaman içerisinde birçok ülke ölçeğinde deneyimlenmiştir. Çalışma içerisinde sistemin yapısal sorunlarına odaklanılarak bir bütün olarak ele alınacak olan mevcut kapitalist birikim rejimi, yaşanan ekonomik krizin arkasında yatan bileşenlerin özellikleri ve böylece varlığını sürdüren ana akım paradigmanın geleceği hakkında bizlere önemli ipuçları verecektir.

Due to their strong welfare states, the Nordic countries enjoy a remarkable degree of income equality. However, it is often argued that similarly generous welfare policies financed by high taxes would significantly reduce the average income in the US by curbing motivation to work and to accumulate capital. This paper is an attempt to quantify the long-term economic impact of a Nordic-style welfare state in the US. To this end, certain long-term counterfactual scenarios in which the US switches to the Nordic policies are analyzed in a dynamic general equilibrium model with imperfect competition and government spending. The equilibrium results suggest that the Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish policies would cause a loss in output in the US of approximately 5%-7%. As for the Danish taxes, the loss in output is substantially larger at almost 13%. When, however, the Nordic tax rates are adjusted and fine-tuned to the US, then there is no loss of output caused by the Nordic levels of tax-to-GDP ratio, government expenditure, and redistribution of income. Moreover, the Nordic taxes that are fine-tuned to the US are unequivocally less than the original Nordic taxes.

The paper provides a critical review of the main Marxist explanations for financialization of the U.S. economy. It also contributes to the Marxist literature by emphasizing the link between neoliberalism and financialization, and flexible accumulation and financialization. Specifically, we argue that commercial bankers played a leading role in initiating the constitution of neoliberalism in the face of the geographical reorientation of the industrial capital, and that the shareholder principle that came to dominate the corporate governance has led to the changes in the organizational and employment structure of big corporations contributing to the formation of flexible labor market structure.

Transportation Infrastructure and Country Att ractiveness

Cross-country comparison conducted by the
World Pensions Council (WPC) suggests that
transportation infrastructure, although important,
is not a major determinant of institutional
investment.

Publisher: New York Times
Author: Steven Erlanger
Date : April 19, 2014

Democratic Decay, Economics, Income Inequality, Inequality, Neo-Fascism, Neo-Fascism In The U.S., Occupy Movement, Occupy Wall Street, Oligarchy, Oligarchy in the US, The 1 Percent, The 1%, Thomas Piketty

The Swamp That Trump Built
The New York Times, October 10, 2020
By Nicholas Confessore, Karen Yourish, Steve Eder, Ben Protess, Maggie Haberman, Grace Ashford, Michael LaForgia, Kenneth P. Vogel, Michael Rothfeld and Larry Buchanan
Graphics and production by Rumsey Taylor, Derek Watkins and Bill Marsh

A businessman-president transplanted favor-seeking in Washington to his family’s hotels and resorts — and earned millions as a gatekeeper to his own administration.

IT WAS SPRINGTIME at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, and the favor-seekers were swarming.
In a gold-adorned ballroom filled with Republican donors, an Indian-born industrialist from Illinois pressed Mr. Trump to tweet about easing immigration rules for highly skilled workers and their children.
“He gave a million dollars,” the president told his guests approvingly, according to a recording of the April 2018 event.
Later that month, in the club’s dining room, the president wandered over to one of its newer members, an Australian cardboard magnate who had brought along a reporter to flaunt his access. Mr. Trump thanked him for taking out a newspaper ad hailing his role in the construction of an Ohio paper mill and box factory, whose grand opening the president would attend.
And in early March, a Tennessee real estate developer who had donated lavishly to the inauguration, and wanted billions in loans from the new administration, met the president at the club and asked him for help.
Mr. Trump waved over his personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen. “Get it done,” the president said, describing the developer as “a very important guy,” Mr. Cohen recalled in an interview.
Campaigning for president as a Washington outsider, Mr. Trump electrified rallies with his vows to “drain the swamp.”

But Mr. Trump did not merely fail to end Washington’s insider culture of lobbying and favor-seeking.
He reinvented it, turning his own hotels and resorts into the Beltway’s new back rooms, where public and private business mix and special interests reign.

As president-elect, he had pledged to step back from the Trump Organization and recuse himself from his private company’s operation. As president, he built a system of direct presidential influence-peddling unrivaled in modern American politics.

Federal tax-return data for Mr. Trump and his business empire, which was disclosed by The New York Times last month, showed that even as he leveraged his image as a successful businessman to win the presidency, large swaths of his real estate holdings were under financial stress, racking up losses over the preceding decades.
(...)

For most of the first 71 years of the 20th Century, the US was on the gold standard, meaning that the US dollar was backed by gold. In 1971, President Richard Nixon removed the US from the gold standard, beginning the current system of fiat money, paper money backed by nothing but the government’s promise to pay. Many in the US argue that a return to the gold standard would end inflation and force the government to be more fiscally responsible.

This paper will give a brief history of the US gold standard, followed by an explanation of the advantages and disadvantages of a gold backed currency. It will also explain why it would be impossible for the US to return to the gold standard.

On September 13, 2012, at the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC)
meeting, the US Federal Reserve announced another round of quantitative
easing called QE3 by purchasing additional agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) at a pace of USD 40 bn per month. Almost four years has passed since the release of the first round of quantitative easing (QE1) also second round of quantitative easing (QE2) and yet, US economy remains weak. Will QE3 make economy more resilient?

This paper investigates the impact of US Export-Import Bank (EXIM) on US exports particularly in the wake of international competition from foreign national export credit agencies
(ECAs). We employ a gravity framework on a country-industry-year-level panel dataset that
matches EXIM authorizations with US bilateral exports. Our results depict the general ineffectiveness of the Bank in promoting exports within and across industries. Some heterogeneities
behind the general finding are also uncovered: industries other than aerospace parts and products
are more likely to benefit from EXIM authorizations, and that EXIM authorizations to larger
businesses seem to be more effective in encouraging exports. Furthermore, we find no evidence
that explains the role of EXIM in encouraging US exports by offsetting foreign ECA competition. These results are neither affected by competing countries’ membership to the OECD
Arrangement nor by the size of American firms that received EXIM support. Our results cast
doubt on the ubiquitously positive claims made by the Bank and its supporters, yet also provide policy lessons for countries that are either in the inception stages of establishing their own
ECAs or are now placing greater importance on ECA financing in encouraging domestic exports.

Economic inequality has recently gained considerable academic attention. However, two important aspects of inequality have not been discussed systematically: its multidimensional nature and the question of what can be done to reverse it. This book offers insights from scholars representing the Global Labour University, which operates in Brazil, Germany, India, South Africa and the US. They analyse the various drivers of inequality, assess policy responses, and discuss counterstrategies. The main findings of this book are that rising levels of inequality cannot be addressed only with the standard policies responses, namely education, redistribution and ‘green growth’. In addition, the way markets currently function needs to be corrected. The chapters in this volume focus on specific fields of contemporary capitalism where important drivers of inequality are located, for example, the labour market; the financial system; the tax system; multi-national corporations; and gender relations. Other chapters discuss in detail where political opportunities for change lie. They critically assess existing countermeasures; the idea of a ‘green economy’ and its implications for inequality; and existing campaigns by trade unions and new social movements against inequality. In line with the global nature of the problem, this book contains case studies on countries both from the north and south with considerable economic and political weight.
This book provides academics, political practitioners and civil society activists with a range of ideas on how to drive back inequality. It will be of interest to those who study political economy, development economy and labour economics.

Table of Contents
1. Introduction Alexander Gallas Part I: The Challenge of Inequality 2.The Rise of Inequality Across the Globe: Drivers, Impacts and Policies for Change Tandiwe Gross, Frank Hoffer and Pierre Laliberté 3. Gender Inequality and the Labour Movement Akua O. Britwum 4. Trade Unions and the Challenge of Economic Inequality: An Unresolved Debate Edward Webster and Christopher Morris Part II: Drivers of Inequality 5.Labour and Financial Markets as Drivers of Inequality Hansjörg Herr and Bea Maria Ruoff 6. The Impact of the Financial Sector on Inequality: A Comparison of the US, Brazil, Germany and India Trevor Evans 7. Multinational Corporations and Economic Inequality in the Global South: Causes, Consequences and Countermeasures in the Bangladeshi and Honduran Apparel Sector Mark Anner and Jakir Hossain Part III: Country Case Studies 8.The US Economy: From Crisis to Stagnation Thomas I. Palley 9. Financialisation, Redistribution and ‘Export-led Mercantilism’: The Case of Germany Eckhard Hein and Daniel Detzer 10. Macroeconomic Processes and Economic Inequality in India Jayati Ghosh 11. Brazil in the Last Twenty Years: Searching for a New Accumulation Regime Marcelo Manzano, Carlos Salas and Anselmo Santos Part IV: Critiques of Conventional Political Responses 12.‘Greening’ Inequality? The Limits of the Green Growth Agenda Birgit Mahnkopf 13. The Social Investment State and the Myth of Meritocracy Heike Solga 14. New Trends in Inequality: The Financialisation of Social Policies Lena Lavinas Part V: Merits and Limits of Alternative Political Responses 15.Market Regulation, Inequality and Economic Development Hansjörg Herr 16. The Role of the Public Sector in Combating Inequality Christoph Hermann 17. Progressive Tax Reform in the OECD Countries: Opportunities and Obstacles Sarah Godar, Christoph Paetz and Achim Truger Part VI: Tools for Counterstrategies 18.Contexualising Strategies for More Equality Christoph Scherrer 19. (Un)Typical Labour Struggles: Creative Campaigns to Challenge Inequality Michelle Williams 20. Countermeasures Against Inequality Christoph Scherrer and Timm Schützhofer

Este artículo analiza la naturaleza del ajuste neoliberal que, desde prin-cipios de los años ochenta, se ha implementado en diferentes economías americanas (Argentina, Brasil, Bolivia, Guatemala, Venezuela y Estados Unidos). Partiendo de una perspectiva de clase, que considera que el ajuste se produce como respuesta a una crisis mundial de rentabilidad del capital, llega a la conclusión de que aquél presenta una naturaleza eminentemente salarial, un carácter mundial (al afectar tanto a los países del centro como a los de la periferia) y es permanente en el tiempo. Palabras clave Políticas de ajuste -Neoliberalismo -Distribución funcional de la renta Abstract This paper analyzes the nature of the neoliberal adjustment which has been implemented in several economies from the American continent -Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Guatemala, Venezuela and the US-since the beginning of the 1980s. Using a class approach, which considers the adjustment as a re-sponse to the world profitability cr...

Abstract
The increasing inconsistency in the Turkish economy gave rise to transformations necessitated by the manner of its growth and technological changes. Between 1923 and 1962, the Turkish economy was based on agricultural growth strategies, which spurred development in the manufacturing sector and caused technological change. Between 1962 and 1985, the Turkish economy developed under import substitution industrialization, with regulations based on domestic consumption growth strategies. In the early 1980s, most of the developed countries, in parallel with which Turkey had development policies, implemented strong institutional changes via deregulation policies, but Turkey could not produce the necessary configurations in accord with open and export growth economies. The period between 1985 and 2003 was a long transformational period for Turkey vying to be a stable export growth country. This slow transformation was caused by path dependency and had been based on regulations that destabilized Turkey and deepened problems remaining from previous periods. Post-2003, the Turkish economy was able to develop more consistent export growth by forced institutional changes, but its macroeconomic factors still do not show institutional complementarity.

Keywords
Agricultural growth Domestic consumption growth Export growth Institutional factors Stylized facts of structural transformation Input–output analysis

JEL Classification
C6 E6 F4 O4

President-elect Donald Trump has portrayed his administration as pro-US-business and pro-US-economy. He seems to have a particular issue with China, who he blames for many of the woes of the US economy, including stealing US jobs and US manufacturing. He likes using the word “deal” and in order to make a better deal for US domestic businesses he has vowed to levy a 45% tariff on Chinese imports, raise a 35% tax on US manufacturers who export jobs overseas, and to withdraw from many international trade agreements, most notably the Transpacific Partnership (TPP) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The rational which the president-elect has given for withdrawing from these agreements is that he feels they have been unfair for American companies.

While small business owners in the US may find these global political/economic issues interesting, the question that effects the quantity and quality of bread he or she can put on the table for their family is, “How does this effect my small business?”

Due to their strong welfare states, the Nordic countries enjoy a remarkable degree of income equality. However, it is often argued that similarly generous welfare policies financed by high taxes would significantly reduce the average income in the US by curbing motivation to work and to accumulate capital. This paper is an attempt to quantify the long-term economic impact of a Nordic-style welfare state in the US. To this end, certain long-term counterfactual scenarios in which the US switches to the Nordic policies are analyzed in a dynamic general equilibrium model with imperfect competition and government spending. The equilibrium results suggest that the Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish policies would cause a loss in output in the US of approximately 5%-7%. As for the Danish taxes, the loss in output is substantially larger at almost 13%. When, however, the Nordic tax rates are adjusted and fine-tuned to the US, then there is no loss of output caused by the Nordic levels of tax-to-GDP ratio, government expenditure, and redistribution of income. Moreover, the Nordic taxes that are fine-tuned to the US are unequivocally less than the original Nordic taxes.

Transnational corporations (TNCs) and public enterprises have been perceived as organisations evolving in separate, even antagonistic, business, economic and ideological spheres. Yet, at the beginning of the 21st Century, utilities in energy, telecommunications, transport and water unexpectedly emerged as leading TNCs. How and why did this remarkable and unprecedented transition occur? What are the consequences for competition, regulation, public services and consumers? Leading authorities from Europe, Russia, Canada, Mexico and the United States analyse the business, economic and historical contexts that have influenced these changes.

The porpuse of this document is to explain the performance of main economic variables. Hence, first macroeconomic and microeconomic variables are displayed in order to describe the recent performance of the economic activity. It is follow by the analysis of international indicators which allow us to explain the economic growth slowdown.  Finally econometric results indicates that an increase in 1% of the oil prices will appreciate the USD dollar against Euro in 0.24%.

The US trade deficit with China, which hit $347 billion in 2016,  has been a constant focus of President Trump’s rhetoric. He has claimed that China has robbed the US of jobs and income and that addressing the US trade deficit will benefit the US economy. The US trade deficit is a much reported and debated topic, as such, this paper will explain what a trade deficit is and explore whether running a trade deficit is good, bad or neutral for a country’s economic prosperity.

The post-1980 era witnessed an increase in the frequency and severity of financial crises around the globe, the majority of which took place in low-and middle-income countries. Studies of the impacts of these crises have identified three broad sets of consequences. First, the burden of crises falls disproportionately on labor in general and low-income segments of society in particular. In the years following financial crises, wages and labor share of income fall, the rate of unemployment increases, the power of labor and labor unions is eroded, and income inequality and rates of poverty increase. Capital as a whole, on the other hand, usually recovers quickly and most of the time gains more ground. Second, the consequences of crises are visible not only through asset and income distribution, but also in government policies. Government policies in most cases favor capital, especially financial capital, at the expense of large masses. In addition, many crises have presented opportunities for further deregulation and liberalization, not only in financial markets but in the rest of the economy as well. Third, in the aftermath of financial crises in low-and middle-income economies, capital inflows may increase as international capital seeks to take advantage of the crisis and acquire domestic financial and non-financial assets. The 2007–2008 financial crisis in the US provides an opportunity to extend this analysis to a leading high-income country and see if the patterns visible in other crises are also visible in this case. Using the questions and issues typically raised in examinations of low-and middle-income countries, we study the consequences of the 2007–2008 US financial crisis and complement the budding literature on the 'Great Recession.' In particular, we examine the impacts of the crisis on labor and capital, with a focus on distributional effects of the crisis such as changes in income shares of labor and capital, and the evolution of inequality and poverty. We also analyse the role of government policies through a study of government taxation and spending policies, and examine capital flow patterns.

The purpose of this article is twofold. On the one hand, to present a growth account of the evolution of the value composition of capital and in so doing to deal with some of the issues raised by Zarembka’s (2015) contribution. And on the other hand, to review some crucial relations between the variables that relate to the movement of the rate of profit and the current predicament.

President-elect Donald Trump has vowed “no new deals”, referring to his retirement from running his many companies. In the US, alarms have been raised regarding potential conflicts of interest arising from the country’s chief executive also having a stake in the numerous companies and industries in which he also exercises authority. Although Donald Trump has promised to step down from his numerous companies by allowing his children to run them, many feel it will be impossible for the lifelong entrepreneur to divest himself.

We calculated the cross correlations between the half-hourly times series of the ten Dow Jones US economic sectors over the period February 2000 to August 2008, the two-year intervals 2002--2003, 2004--2005, 2008--2009, and also over 11 segments within the present financial crisis, to construct minimal spanning trees (MSTs) of the US economy at the sector level. In all MSTs, a core-fringe structure is found, with consumer goods, consumer services, and the industrials consistently making up the core, and basic materials, oil and gas, healthcare, telecommunications, and utilities residing predominantly on the fringe. More importantly, we find that the MSTs can be classified into two distinct, statistically robust, topologies: (i) star-like, with the industrials at the center, associated with low-volatility economic growth; and (ii) chain-like, associated with high-volatility economic crisis. Finally, we present statistical evidence, based on the emergence of a star-like MST in Sep 2009, and the MST staying robustly star-like throughout the Greek Debt Crisis, that the US economy is on track to a recovery.

The IMF released last July 24 its latest assessments of the current account balances for the 30 largest economies in its External Sector Report 2018. There was no major change in 2017 relative to previous years and the reconfiguration of surpluses and deficits that has prevailed since 2013 was essentially extended. However, there are reasons to expect more abrupt alterations ahead, as the U.S. fiscal easing under high employment conditions unfolds. Given the context of ongoing U.S.-led trade wars, as well as the recent bout of Chinese exchange rate depreciation, one may wonder about the prospects of currencies also becoming subject to war or rather to what Citi has called “currency bullying”.

We calculated the cross correlations between the half-hourly times series of the ten Dow Jones US economic sectors over the period February 2000 to August 2008, the two-year intervals 2002–2003, 2004–2005, 2008–2009, and also over 11 segments within the present financial crisis, to construct minimal spanning trees (MSTs) of the US economy at the sector level. In all MSTs, a core-fringe structure is found, with consumer goods, consumer services, and the industrials consistently making up the core, and basic materials, oil & gas, healthcare, telecommunications, and utilities residing predominantly on the fringe. More importantly, we find that the MSTs can be classified into two distinct, statistically robust, topologies: (i) star-like, with the industrials at the center, associated with low-volatility economic growth; and (ii) chain-like, associated with high-volatility economic crisis. Finally, we present statistical evidence, based on the emergence of a star-like MST in Sep 2009, and the MST staying robustly star-like throughout the Greek Debt Crisis, that the US economy is on track to a recovery.► CY-IN-NC core and BM-EN-HC-TL-UT fringe in minimal spanning trees of Dow Jones US economic sector indices. ► Volatility shocks propagate from fringe to core of minimal spanning trees. ► Star-like minimal spanning trees during economic growth and chain-like minimal spanning trees during economic crisis. ► Emergence of star-like minimal spanning tree indicator for US economic recovery.

Nesse sistema, expectativas ilimitadas podem inviabilizar a democracia. Quem limita mais as expectativas se torna a candidatura mais desejável, após múltiplas filtragens.

Hillary trouxe freios e contrapesos ao ódio sistemático e ilimitado de Trump. Em contraste com Bernie Sanders, poupou a grande finança de críticas e se propôs a continuar a obra de Obama, sem rupturas adicionais. Ao se definir como moderada, é a provável vencedora de Novembro de 2016.

Para emergentes como o Brasil, as duas candidaturas trazem problemas. Negar a profundidade da crise ou transformá-la em conspiração emergente apenas retarda a recuperação econômica global.

The article analyzes the continuities and discontinuities in the US economy from the 1980s to the end of 2010, with an emphasis on the interplay between the economic and the strategic/military choices made by successive US administrations throughout the period.

This essay is the third in a three-part series about ideology and space on AMC's lauded television show "Mad Men." See the attached link to "Flow"'s website, where the article was published, for embedded videos intended to be viewed alongside reading the essay.

While discussing the US economy, I was given the following statistic: “The dollar lost half its purchasing power between 1981-2009. Gold went from $400-$1,087 per ounce during the same period.”
The person who gave the above statistic to prove that the US should have remained on a gold standard, and that the dollar, now being a fiat currency, will become plagued by hyperinflation, eventually loosing value, until it hits zero. This person believed that the above statistic  proved that the demise of the Dollar had already begun. To further complicate matter, the person with whom I was discussing the US economy is part of a growing segment of the population who subscribes to alternative media such as this article, by Steve Sjuggerud, “What every American should know about the coming death of the dollar, n.d.” which predicts that the US dollar has already begun to die a slow death as the IMF special drawing rights currency (SDR) is allegedly becoming a “world currency” and because the world is moving back to a gold standard. 

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how one can analyze this type of data, and test it for validity.

As Donald Trump continues his quest for the Republican nomination, free trade agreements remain in his crosshairs. The billionaire has been making waves by opposing American free trade initiatives like the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) – just signed earlier this month by ministers of the 12 Pacific Rim member nations – and even the 21-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). As Trump put it in November, right now “free trade’s no good” for the United States. It may sound strange for the leading GOP candidate for president to be bad-mouthing free trade, but this is a protectionist sentiment that more and more Republicans appear to be warming up to. It’s also a protectionist sentiment that’s drawn from the party’s paranoid past, as I’ve explored in my new book on Anglo-American trade.

To make millions or billions of fortunes from investing a penny is every financial planners dream. Therefore, they are continuously in search of the best promising stock out of pool of stocks to invest in. It is because of the simple reason that if they get success in identifying the winning stock from the pool much before it actually takes off, then it will not only change the finances of your client permanently but it will also change your career perspective as a financial planner completely in a positive way.
In the process of finding highly successful companies from the past decade whose stocks performed way beyond the market in the past decade, we will be analyzing their specific market driving characteristics which not only helped these companies to out-grow but also boosted their stocks to be the benchmark performer in their respective industries. And, thus with this analysis, we will be able to pin-point future market winner stocks. In addition to that, with this analysis we can also understand that all these top-performing stocks share some specific market driving characteristics in common which not only makes them unique but also star-perform stock across the industry.