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November Stock and Fund Picks

Socio-Economic Aspects of Election History: I was mortified when Richard Nixon was voted back into his second presidential term. But then I realized that most people were afraid of communism's spread and wanted protection from it. Moreover, those who could perceive what Watergate would become were very much in the minority. There are some parallels to Trump's recent election victory. Many blue-collar workers have lost jobs to competition from international trade over the last 80 years or so because every…

September 2024 Stock and Fund Picks

Sept. 19: What an opportunity! This is the first election we can choose a convicted felon who spews nothing but hate and lies. Moreover, his only coherent economic policy of across-the-board tariffs will make us collectively worse off. Empirical evidence demonstrates that import tariffs, another type of sales tax, are 100% passed on to consumers through higher import prices. What are the costs and benefits you ask? Empirical evidence shows that, on average, each job protected costs consumers at least…

May 2024 Stock and Fund Picks

May 9, 2024: Aggregate demand management by the Fed hasn't slowed its biggest aspect, Consumer Demand, all that much. Consumers running out of pandemic savings and running up too much debt may become the more predominant effect. By contrast, aggregate supply has taken care of itself. That said, the higher interest rates have slowed growth more among the higher leveraged smaller firms, leading the smaller firm indexes to lag until just recently. Reducing aggregate demand growth through higher interest rates…

September Stock and Fund Picks

Sept. 29, 2023: Let's say I am the Fed and I want to protect the markets, consumers, and citizens from reality. So, I hide a T-Rex debt monster behind a curtain called the Fed's balance sheet. I monetize or "feed" the T-Rex over-time by buying up newly issued IRS debt, and thereby increasing my balance sheet while injecting money into the economy during the Pandemic. This lowers interest rates and increases spending -- indirectly through lower rates and directly through…

August Stock and Fund Picks

August 14: In business cycle parlance, we are coming down from a peak towards a recessionary trough and appear to be nearly there. This trough is not likely to be an actual recession though as the economy is generally still too strong for that. Thus, a "soft landing" has become a common expectation. The more relevant question question is when earnings or profits will stop continuing to fall and bottom out. As it is, the approach towards a trough tends…