Larry Summers: Corporate Greed Apologist

Turn That Frown Upside Down

An overarching theme for Republicans, regarding the next election cycle, is this idea that things are an economic mess. Times are tough, everyone is struggling. 

Yet, in many metrics, a reasonable, non-partisan observer would most likely conclude that times are, generally, good. 

Unemployment

The current unemployment rate is under 4% (3.7% as of today for the U.S.; 3% for Wisconsin). And, despite an historically low unemployment rate, wages are rising.

Interest Rates

Historically speaking, interest rates are low. In the 1970s, rates were mid-7 percent. The 1980s saw rates rise to mid-9 percent. The 1990s started around 10 percent, and finished around 8 percent. From 2000 through the 2010s, rates fell from 8 percent to 3 percent. The 2020s have seen rates rise from high-3 percent to the current mid-5 percent.

Inflation Rate

The majority of noise in the inflation rate hangs on the energy sector. A better descriptor for this phenomenon is price-gouging. The energy sector doubled gasoline prices and laughed all the way to the bank as Republicans and their accomplices manufactured the price-gouging into a Joe Biden spending (inflation) problem. It's no coincidence that as the energy sector has gouged less (gas prices have come down), inflation has fallen.

Weekend Reading

Fed's Evans Questions March Toward Higher Interest Rates
America's Middle Class Is Vanishing. Nearly Half Of Workers Earn Less Than $30,000
A Historian Makes The Case Against Billionaires
Scientists Have Established A Link Between Brain Damage And Religious Fundamentalism
How Past Income Tax Rate Cuts On The Wealthy Affected The Economy
The Economics Of Soaking The Rich
How Marginal Tax Rates Actually Work, Explained With A Cartoon
The "Skills Gap" Was A Lie
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Floating A 70 Percent Top Tax Rate - Here's The Research That Backs Her Up

Sunday Reading

How Milwaukee Shook Off The Rust
Mark Cuban Rips Trump As The Zoolander President
Scott Walker's Promise To Create 250,000 Jobs In Wisconsin Remains Elusive
One Way To Counter Job Killing Robots: Stop The Federal Reserve Board From Raising Interest Rates
What Is Unemployment?
Trump's Industrial Rebirth Is A Dead End
The Truth About Obama's Economic Legacy And Trump's Inheritance
That $1.9 Trillion Cost Of Regulation

Interest Rates, Bureaucracy, Unionization & Inequality

Hike They Shouldn't
Principled Populism
Relationship Between US Productivity & The Decline in The Labor Share of National Income
Most Americans Get 'Free Stuff' From The Government
Hail to the Pencil Pusher
Union Power & Inequality

Weekend Reading

The Real Reason Germs Spread in the Winter
The Links Between Gut Microbes and the Brain
The Myth of Big, Bad Gluten
The Religious Right's Big Lie About the Founding of America
You're Not Irrational, You're Quantum Probabilistic
American Failure: The 401(K)
The 401(K) Crisis is Getting Worse
Inequality in Our Retirement Accounts
The Rage of the Bankers
Why Does Wall Street Want Higher Rates?
The Stock Market is Not the Economy
The Case Against Raising Interest Rates Before Wage Growth Picks Up
The Failed Reaganomics Experiment In Kansas Keeps Getting Worse
Red States Spent $2 Billion in 2015 to Screw the Poor