John Ward September 4, 2015 The Devil Rides out in neoliberal theory, The Devil Rides out in UK payroll data, The Devil rides out inside Newscorp, The Devil Rides out on Wall Street

The Devil Rides out

The Devil comes in all the sizes & all the colours

‘Wall Street’s richest mega banks collect the life insurance proceeds and tax benefits on the untimely deaths of their workers – all codified into law by the U.S. Congress – making death a profit center on Wall Street. Or, as Frontline revealed, that two-thirds of your 401(k) plan over a working lifetime is likely to be lost to financial fees’.

Michael Hudson

Further support for a long-held Slog analysis on US payroll data:

‘the reason jobless claims have trended lower is because there are less people working full-time in jobs that qualify for unemployment benefits when they do lose their jobs’.

Investment Research Dynamics

(Hat-tip to kf)

‘Productivity in the West rose 21.6% from 2000-2014, but typical worker’s pay grew by just 1.8%’

Economic Policy Institute *

*Non-partisan, non-profit US based Think Tank

A brief history of Hatie Skinpok:

On 17 April 2015, Katie Hopkins wrote a column in The Sun comparing migrants to “cockroaches” and “feral humans” and said they were “spreading like the norovirus”….A Change.org petition was initiated with the aim of getting The Sun to sack Hopkins. By 26 April, it had attracted over 310,000 signatures. It had no effect on Newscorp. This is what former Turdoch fixer Les Hinton had to say on Twitter today:

Coming from the most devilishly mendacious smear-media organisation in world history, that one just has to take the biscuit. You ain’t wrong, Les mate: you’re just a badly-parked lackey.

The Slog

12Comments

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1

halfkidding on September 5, 2015 at 2:57 am

Say’s Law ignores credit. A rather important thing to miss in this age of debt money. Say’s law always has had proponents with varying degrees of enthusiasm and theorists who do the neo thing to it. All of which I promptly forget.

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2

halfkidding on September 5, 2015 at 2:50 am

In the US the Unemployment Rate is as you say a function of people who can collect unemployment insurance. Which is allowed to those who have been working and then laid off and then the allotment is 26 weeks I think.This is a far far different thing than the number of people who want to work.

So don’t get me wrong when I point out that the absolute best indicator of the employment situation in the US is the amount of taxes withheld from paychecks. This number has been swinging upwards on a year over year basis from 3% to almost 7% for several years and the last 18 months or so has been the strongest of all.

http://wallstreetexaminer.com/2015/09/very-strong-federal-tax-collections-began-to-slow-this-week/

This number, the taxes withheld number. is dutifully reported by the Treasury every week and it is simply the very best indicator of what is happening with jobs and US households. Keep in mind that inflation has to be subtracted from year over year numbers but 3% plus is as good as a should be accepted. Any rate above the population growth rate is gravy, as we say here.

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3

Lupulco on September 5, 2015 at 2:11 am

Two rights and two wrongs?
KJH #To put it another way, ” Production is the source of demand” Which became Say’s Law.#
without demand their is no need for production [a bit like the eggs & chicken]
Bill 40 #Says’ Law can only exist in a closed economy#
If one believes in a total Global economy, then we have a closed economy.
I suppose like the sterling area in the early part of the last century. Then in the latter half of the last century we had the Petrodollar area.
The early part of this century is still undergoing change, Petrodollar is on the wane, but what is to replace it? No clear idea yet.
The Anglo Saxon control of the last two centuries, again on the wane. But what is to replace it? Chinese, or Asian control? Or a BRIC control? or will it be a combination of all three?
The game is still on, we are just onlookers, not the players

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4

bill40 on September 4, 2015 at 8:53 pm

Says’ Law can only exist in a closed economy and exactly proves Johns’ point. If production doesn’t support greater demand by way of higher wages then how can demand increase? The short term answer was a massive rise in consumer debt and that is what is unsustainable.
Our economists have forgotten nothing in general except where they willfully ignore the economics that caused the Great Depression. Now we are talking about money creation and its’ functional purpose.
This is a small step forward.

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5

kfc1404 on September 4, 2015 at 7:58 pm

‘The IMF Just Confirmed The Nightmare Scenario For Central Banks Is Now In Play’
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-09-04/imf-just-confirmed-nightmare-scenario-central-banks-now-play

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6

KJH on September 4, 2015 at 7:11 pm

In 1803 Jean-Baptiste Say wrote A Treatise on Political Economy, in which he stated:

“A product is no sooner created, than it, from that instant, affords a market for other products to the full extent of its own value. As each of us can only purchase the productions of others with his own productions – as the value we can buy is equal to the value we can produce, the more men can produce, the more they will purchase”

To put it another way, ” Production is the source of demand” Which became Say’s Law.

Our contemporary economists seem to have forgotten this.

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7

John Ward on September 4, 2015 at 6:26 pm

Stan
I would’ve thought it obvious from the numbers there is NO correlation. Sort of my point, really.
Do you think employees don’t have rising costs?
‘Higher costs + Lower selling price equals lower profit so an increase in productivity helps offset this. Simple management.’ Nope, simplistic management.
Productivity is low for blindingly obvious reasons: no benefits, no loyalty from the company, crap wages, lousy contracts, no say in the business, automation fears etc etc.

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8

nobby on September 4, 2015 at 4:32 pm

Don’t hold your breath Stan.

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9

Ambassador Lee Emil Wanta on September 4, 2015 at 4:13 pm

V.P. JOE BIDEN _ ATTACHMENT ADDED – Â Thank you, Leehttp://eagleonetowanta.com/

http://eagleonetowanta.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/AMB-LEO-WANTA-vs-CORPORATE-STATE-OF-WIS_U-S-SUPREME-….pdf http://www.vikinginternationalllc.com/ From: The Slog. To: somam@prodigy.net Sent: Friday, September 4, 2015 10:04 AM Subject: [New post] The Devil Rides out #yiv4210613772 a:hover {color:red;}#yiv4210613772 a {text-decoration:none;color:#0088cc;}#yiv4210613772 a.yiv4210613772primaryactionlink:link, #yiv4210613772 a.yiv4210613772primaryactionlink:visited {background-color:#2585B2;color:#fff;}#yiv4210613772 a.yiv4210613772primaryactionlink:hover, #yiv4210613772 a.yiv4210613772primaryactionlink:active {background-color:#11729E;color:#fff;}#yiv4210613772 WordPress.com | John Ward posted: “The Devil comes in all the sizes & all the colours’Wall Streetâs richest mega banks collect the life insurance proceeds and tax benefits on the untimely deaths of their workers â all codified into law by the U.S. Congress â making death a profit ce” | |

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10

Stan on September 4, 2015 at 3:41 pm

‘Productivity in the West rose 21.6% from 2000-2014, but typical worker’s pay grew by just 1.8%’

I fail to see where you get a direct correlation from. Labour is one part of the costs of a product or service. In the same period other costs have risen; energy; business rates; costs imposed by the Gov-EU; you name it. A lot of manufactured goods & services have dropped in price either because there is a glut (flat screened TVs) or because of competition from overseas. Higher costs + Lower selling price equals lower profit so an increase in productivity helps offset this. Simple management. One problem we have in the UK is there hasn’t been any significant improvement in productivity for some years so it gets hard to justify any pay increases. A lot of UK companies kept their employees in jobs after 2007 when the normal policy was to announce layoffs. This cost some companies a lot of money. I for one won’t begrudge them trying to recover some of it, if and when UK productivity starts to rise again.

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11

Caratacus on September 4, 2015 at 2:44 pm

Ditto … particularly liked “The Ford Ka of Gifford Hillary” :-)

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12

groundedkiwi on September 4, 2015 at 2:11 pm

Loved all the Dennis Wheatley books. Read them as a teenager in the 60s.

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