This Mary MacGregor ballad released in 1976 notes how a woman is torn between two men she loves and it is “breakin’ all the rules.” This is the situation Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and the FOMC finds itself: The love of its dual mandate and its torrid affair with the beloved Phillips Curve. Now it appears that the FED leadership is abandoning its affair with Phillips Curve while it grows more attached to its other love, Mario Draghi and the European Central Bank.
Posts Tagged ‘Phillips Curve’
Notes From Underground: The Week That Was …?
March 26, 2018What a week last week turned out to be (and that was if you just followed the headlines). Tariffs are taxing the global financial markets as they try to guesstimate the economic impact from the effect of tit-for-tat responses to the initial U.S. measures efforts to gain support for dealing with Chinese trade violations. The FOMC added to market volatility as the suspense over three or four rate hikes still impacts the DOT PLOTS. The Bank of England confused markets as they voted 7-2 to sustain the current interest rate policy, even though consensus assumed a 25 basis point increase. By week’s end the confusion reverberating around the globe did serious damage to equity markets as the S&PS were down almost 6 percent on the week and the European stock indices continued their continued their selloff, making them the weakest of all regions (in contravention to the punditry’s call for the buying of European stocks).
Notes From Underground: Ben Bernanke Channels Karl Marx
June 26, 2017Set your way back machines to and visit the philosophy of the Young Marx in his famous musings, The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Read the concerns that Marx raises about the ALIENATION of LABOR. In the book edited by Dirk J.Struik, I am citing pieces from the chapter, “Wages of Labor.”
- “Wages are determined through the antagonistic struggle between capitalist and worker.”
- “The demand for men necessarily governs the production of men,as of every other commodity. Should supply greatly exceed demand, a section of the workers sinks into beggary or starvation.”
- “The worker need not necessarily gain when the capitalist does,but he necessarily loses when the latter loses.”