Category Archives: business cycles

Canadian employment falls by 21,900 but headline unemployment rate falls to 7.0 %

Posted on February 8, 2013 by

Statistics Canada has released its latest Labour force survey for the month of January. It shows that unemployment has fallen to 7.0 % but there are 21,900 fewer people employed and the fall in the headline rate is due to … Continue reading →

Posted in Alberta, austerity, business cycles, Canada, fiscal policy, full employment, J.M.Keynes, labour market clearing, monetary policy, Québec, Uncategorized, unemployment | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

U.S. jobs report January 2013 unemployment 7.9% 157,000 jobs added:clear need for further fiscal stimulus

Posted on February 1, 2013 by

The U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics has released the employment report for January . It shows that unemployment rose slightly to 7.9 %, 157,000 new jobs were added and there were significant upward revisions to employment numbers for last November … Continue reading →

Posted in austerity, business cycles, deficit hysteria, deficits and debt, Federal Reserve, fiscal policy, full employment, monetary policy, quantitative easing, U.S. | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

U.S. 4th quarter GDP shrinks by 0.1 percent: No time to cut spending

Posted on January 30, 2013 by

The news came as a surprise to many but the 4th quarter of 2012 experienced a slowdown in growth that resulted in a very marginal but nonethess a negative growth rate for the GDP. The source of the problem was … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized, deficits and debt, unemployment, fiscal policy, U.S., austerity, business cycles, full employment, deficit hysteria | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Boris Backs Britain Away From Austerity

Posted on January 25, 2013 by

The colourful Tory mayor of London, Boris Johnson has come out forcefully in opposition to the disasterous austerity policies that are at the centre of  Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne’s economic strategy. Following in the tradition of British Conservative … Continue reading →

Posted in austerity, business cycles, deficit hysteria, full employment, J.M.Keynes, progressives, U.K. economy, Uncategorized, unemployment | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Keynes’s Fundamental Equations From The Treatise on Money

Posted on December 11, 2012 by

The symbols used in A Treatise on Money are somewhat different from the General Theory  and for those who are familiar with GT but not the Treatise are a little confusing at first. See both Keynes’s A Treatise on Money vol.1 ch.10 … Continue reading →

Posted in austerity, business cycles, classical economics, European unemployment, fiscal policy, full employment, J.M.Keynes, monetary policy, treasury view, U.K. economy, U.S., Uncategorized, unemployment | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

US Unemployment Rate Falls to 7.7% from 7.9%:Positive trend continues

Posted on December 7, 2012 by

  The latest U.S. unemployment rate shows a continuation of the positive trend of lower unemployment and a gradually healing eeconomy. The headline rate for November 2012 dropped two tenths of a percentage point to 7.7 % from its October … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized, unemployment, fiscal policy, U.S., business cycles, full employment, American Presidential election | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Hoarding, speculation and the problem of unemployment

Posted on December 1, 2012 by

The classical school of economics always argued that wages would adjust to clear gluts of unemployed workers over a reasonably short period of time and that cash would not be hoarded but used to purchase bonds or otherwise spent on … Continue reading →

Posted in business cycles, classical economics, deficit hysteria, European unemployment, free trade and globalization, Greek sovereign debt crisis, monetary policy, treasury view, U.K. economy, Uncategorized, unemployment | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Obama wins decisive but narrow victory in both popular vote and electoral college.

Posted on November 11, 2012 by

This past week’s American election marks an important historical turning point. A broadly based multi-cultural multi-lingual diverse lifestyle progressive 21st century  coalition won a narrow but decisive victory over a much more conservative traditional 20th century coalition. Both sides worked … Continue reading →

Posted in American Presidential election, austerity, business cycles, fiscal policy, full employment, U.S. | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

This U.S. recession’s recovery in comparison to 7 earlier ones:unemployment 45 months after its peak

Posted on October 17, 2012 by

One critical way of guaging the severity of a recession, the impact of policy and the changing circumstances of the gobal economy is to examine the behaviour of unemployment during and after a recession. Fortunately we have excellent monthly data … Continue reading →

Posted in austerity, business cycles, deficits and debt, full employment, U.S., Uncategorized, unemployment | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The fall economic conversation: Hayek versus Keynes, Romney versus Obama, whither the global business cycle ?

Posted on September 18, 2012 by

Now that relative calm has  returned to Québec after the provincial election we can focus our attention on the broader economic issues that beset the global economy. The American election although currently focused on foreign policy appears set to return … Continue reading →

Posted in austerity, business cycles, deficit hysteria, deficits and debt, European debt crisis, Federal Reserve, fiscal policy, free trade and globalization, full employment, Hayek, treasury view, U.K. economy, U.S., Uncategorized, unemployment | Leave a comment