As unemployment in the labor pool rose, so did the requirements for education and experience from employers. What was portrayed by Chamber of Commerce and economists as a ‘skills gap’ was the consequence of high unemployment, not the cause. “The Skills Gap was a Lie”, Matthew Yglesias
Author Archives: bwd
Returns on Capital to Labor and Higher Costs?
Although some analysts warned of inflation, Ms. Girard said the pay increase should not bother policymakers at the Federal Reserve. “I don’t think it’s something the Fed should worry about,” she said. “Productivity growth is picking up, and workers should earn more. It doesn’t mean companies have to pass on higher wage costs to consumers. […]
Monopsony and Fed Up
Fed Up: Flat wages, below target inflation, rising EPOP— #864: The Central Bankers’ Question
Trade Wars Looking More Arduous Everyday
Jim Zarroli: “China’s economy is much less dependent on trade now and on trade with the U.S. than it used to be,” says Linda Lim, professor of corporate strategy and international business at the University of Michigan. “Trade is around 20 percent of China’s economy,” she says. “Ten years ago, it was 40 percent.” At […]
Oahu
Murals are everywhere downtown Wonderful portrait that reminds me of someone but I can’t put my finger on it Roadside cafe More Bishop Museum artifacts!
Approaching Challenges with a Model
(1) Focus on High-leverage Activities — “Leverage should be the central, guiding metric that helps you determine where to focus your time.” (related: Eisenhower decision matrix — “what is important is seldom urgent, and what is urgent is seldom important.”, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” Gabriel Weinberg’s blog has […]
The Web vs the Trinet
The 2018 elections are coming and our networks are still vulnerable to manipulation…. The Web Began Dying in 2014: What has changed over the last 4 years is market share of traffic on the Web. It looks like nothing has changed, but GOOG and FB now have direct influence over 70%+ of internet traffic. Mobile […]
Modular Housing as a Construction Alternative
A study from the Berkeley Terner Center on roughly 800 prefabricated housing units suggests that offsite construction could lend more housing at cheaper prices if it could be brought to scale: The Case for Off-site Multifamily Construction While a number of other countries such as Sweden have already broadly integrated off-site construction, only a few […]
Tax Cuts and Labor Supply Elasticity
Dietrich E. Vollrath on why tax cuts don’t lead to growth: We think that if you lower the tax rate, and hence raise the returns to inputs, we should get more of them. But to “supercharge” growth in GDP, or to have any appreciable effect on GDP at all, you need that the elasticity of […]
Federal Deficits and Government Spending
Stephanie Kelton with an NYT editorial on why the deficit doesn’t matter, but the economy does: The trick is to adjust the budget to make efficient use of the people, factories and raw materials we have…. But all of this goes unrecognized on Capitol Hill, where the very words “debt” and “deficit” have been weaponized […]