Economics

Paywall removed: https://archive.is/2f1VY

https://archive.ph/09Uxw

Two economic papers presented at the ECB forum in Sintra drew criticism for their questionable conclusions on the causes of inflation.

The first paper attributed inflation primarily to demand shocks, contradicting widely held views and empirical evidence pointing to significant supply-side factors.

The second paper, while offering valuable insights into past interest rate cycles, used the same flawed methodology and also arrived at implausible results.

Another paper, analyzing geopolitical shocks and inflation, underestimated the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on global inflation. The UK's new chancellor, Rachel Reeves, faces a challenging economic landscape, as indicated by a chart showing the UK's unfavorable economic indicators compared to 1997.

https://archive.ph/SMhkZ

Using data from the Census Bureau, TransUnion and the Federal Reserve, the study’s authors looked at inflation-adjusted household debt in the country’s largest 181 cities found Santa Clarita, California to have the highest average household credit card debt ($21,836), followed by Chula Vista, CA ($20,920), New York, NY ($19,207), Fontana, CA ($18,843) and Rancho Cucamonga, CA ($18,549).

https://archive.ph/B6BHy

https://archive.ph/O1kQZ

Alternative link: https://archive.ph/ce08r

"Specifically, let me make three points. First, while $34 trillion is a very large figure, it’s a lot less scary than many imagine if you put it in historical and international context. Second, to the extent debt is a concern, making debt sustainable wouldn’t be at all hard in terms of the straight economics; it’s almost entirely a political problem. Finally, people who claim to be deeply concerned about debt are, all too often, hypocrites — the level of their hypocrisy often reaches the surreal.

How scary is the debt? It’s a big number, even if you exclude debt that is basically money that one arm of the government owes to another — debt held by the public is still around $27 trillion. But our economy is huge, too. Today, debt as a percentage of G.D.P. isn’t unprecedented, even in America: It’s roughly the same as it was at the end of World War II. It’s considerably lower than the corresponding number for Japan right now and far below Britain’s debt ratio at the end of World War II. In none of these cases was there anything resembling a debt crisis. ..."

https://www.jstor.org/stable/23601991

https://archive.is/H4deh