Krugman, Inequality, and the Crisis

There’s nothing original here (and apologies for the less-than-clever subject). I just wanted to do a drive-by and point out/quote approvingly a couple good posts from David Ruccio about Paul Krugman’s role of inequality and the crisis. First, Krugman’s clearly in trouble, and his mainstream economics training is not much help. So, let’s offer him [...]

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Agricultural Revolutionaries, Part 6

WWOOFers [ht:ss] [This post is the sixth and final in a series that looks at different efforts to build a more sustainable food system in the United States. These efforts challenge us to think about food as not just a commodity, but more as a relationship with the Earth. Feel free to leave any other [...]

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Destructive Tar Sands Oil

Via Mark Thoma, tar sands oil is another example of resources that should perhaps be left in the ground- especially for wealthy countries like the US and Canada, who are far along the Kuznets curve, but also for developing countries. News reports about chemical tests are never as dramatic as the sight of oil-drenched birds and [...]

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Natural Resource Stewardship: Economics, Ethics, and Organizing

I’ve been chewing on this review for a while, but I think I need to just post the darn thing, so here goes (and as a disclaimer, I was sent a review copy of this book, although I was not directly solicited or charged to write one). As an added disclaimer, well, look at the [...]

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Phone companies supporting the right-wing

From MotherJones, some bad news for those of us anti-right wing cell phone users…. Credo Mobile claims to offer an alternative, as they are a phone company that only donates to environmental and liberal campaigns (peace, social justice, the environment, gays rights, civil rights, voting rights…) Regardless of one’s political beliefs, it is an interesting [...]

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Economies for Profit or Consumption

When economists cheerlead GDP figures, they do so based on the supposedly positive judgment that growth implies consumption gains, which means that people are better off. There’s good reason to be skeptical of this claim, even leaving aside distributional concerns. Robert Reich, in discussing China’s currency announcement, speaks well to the issue of a production versus consumption [...]

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The Self-Contradictory State of Economics

There are hardly any (mainstream) economist that will disagree with the claim that perfectly competitive markets lead to the most efficient outcomes. These markets should have no barriers to entry, nor be dominated by any agent or group of agents. Mainstream economists are also eager to encroach on other fields of study, especially to do [...]

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Behavioural Economics and Power

I think James Kwak makes some great points on applying behavioural economics to the current crisis. We must not let that approach excuse the worst of corporate excesses: First, it doesn’t do to say that ordinary people are irrational in making ordinary everyday decisions, and therefore we have to accept that companies will be irrational [...]

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BP’s corporatism

Douglas Rushkoff understands the bigger picture implications of how the Obama administration handles the BP oil spill. This, of course, relates to the problem of corporate personhood stemming from limited liability, and opens up space for us to think about alternative approaches to the firm in our society. In the latest round of empty fist [...]

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Agricultural Revolutionaries, Part 5

Local Producers Better known for bygone things, as the former home of Studebaker and now the former home of the College Football Hall of Fame, the city of South Bend, IN is looking towards the future in food. The efforts of local activists have recently put the city on the cutting edge of local, urban, [...]

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