The newly elected Labour government’s first budget has just been presented. Rachel Reeves, the UK finance minister (called Chancellor of the Exchequer in Britain) said her budget proposals would stabilise Britain’s public finances; stimulate economic growth, avoid damaging the living standards of ‘working people’; and begin to reverse the disastrous Continue Reading
Michael Roberts
Crowd strikes out
The massive tech failure that caused chaos around the world raises important questions about the ownership and control of our digital world. The relatively unknown, cyber-security firm CrowdStrike admitted that the problem was caused by an update to its antivirus software, which was designed to protect Microsoft Windows devices from Continue Reading
Britain’s Securonomics
There’s been Abenomics in Japan; Modinomics in India and Bidenomics in the US. Now we have Securonomics in Britain. This is slick terminology for the basics of the UK’s new Labour government’s economic policy – as expounded by its new finance minister (quaintly called the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Continue Reading
Modern supply-side economics and the New Washington Consensus
Last month, the US National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, outlined the international economic policy of the US administration. This was a pivotal speech, because Sullivan explained what is called the New Washington Consensus on US foreign policy. The original Washington Consensus was a set of ten economic policy prescriptions considered to constitute Continue Reading
Acemoglu, AI and automation
There is a new burst of techno-optimism emerging over the application of ChatGPT and LLMs. One analyst reckons that AI “has huge potential to boost economy-wide productivity” and cited a recent MIT study that showed a massive improvement in productivity while using ChatGPT. Also, much of the productivity gains were seen Continue Reading
What’s the problem with pensions?
The recent massive demonstrations against the Macron administration in France forcing through so-called pension reforms reveals the determined attempts of pro-capitalist governments in all the major economies to cut real wages when we are old and can no longer work. The Macron government has forced by decree a ‘reform’ that Continue Reading