Post Tagged with: "wages"
China currency bill is about US politics, not trade
Below is a video of my appearance on RT International last night discussing the recent bill to authorise sanctions against the Chinese for currency manipulation. I see this bill as all about the politics and little about the economics
Chart of the Day: Eurozone wage growth, pre-crisis
10% ‘internal devaluation’ in Germany took eight years. We are talking now about 20-30% wage and price cuts in Greece and Ireland. How realistic is that
Increase in UK take home pay more subdued
Disposable personal income gains are moderating. In the UK, where the increase in consumer prices is the most elevated in the G7, income in real terms is declining and that has led to a gloomy picture of the UK economy’s prospects
64% of Americans Can’t Handle a $1,000 Emergency Expense
This is a stunning stat and shows how out of touch Washington and Wall Street are with Main Street. Imagine if gas prices spike $2.00 per gallon
Russia’s Economic Interests (Part 1)
The neoliberal idea is to dismantle the government’s ability to regulate markets to steer growth and economic advance in the national interest. They claim that this is an alternative to centralized planning. But the reality is that it simply centralizes planning in the hands of bankers – primarily those of Wall Street and the City of London, followed by financial interests in satellite economies and other subordinate partners in this policy
Stagnant growth in UK take home pay
Annual growth on the VocaLink Public Sector Take Home Pay Index stands at 1.3% and in the private sector, growth has fallen to 2.9%
Britain: public sector income growth lags private sector after pay freezes
Below are the findings of the recently released VocaLink Public Sector Take Home Pay Index. The VocaLink Take Home Pay Indices measure after-tax income as opposed to pre-tax gross income. So they are designed to reflect what Americans call disposable personal income
Rising executive pay behind income inequality
Executive pay has skyrocketed. Meanwhile, the real average hourly wage peaked in 1973. It declined precipitously until the mid-1990s before rising somewhat. The increase in labour participation rates due to the addition of women in the paid work force has meant that Americans’ per capita and household income levels have risen. However, now labour force participation rates are at their lowest in 30 years
How to become virtuous and save more
In this column, Michael Pettis uses Germany and Spain as examples of the interplay between savings rates, trade balances and economic policy. Looking at this interplay, it turns out that domestic policies by the German government can explain both high German savings and low Spanish savings
China: First the credit writedowns, but then what?
The immediate problem is the excess capital investment and the costly maintenance of the projects it has spawned. Longer-term, Asia’s growth prospects look good
US Savings Rate 1981-2011
The personal savings rate came in at 4.9%, the lowest since October 2008 before the Lehman crisis caused savings rates to jump up. Below are a few charts for a historical perspective
Hard landing possible as Chinese inflation spirals ‘out of control’
On Saturday I wrote about the Scylla and Charybdis of anchoring inflation expectations, geared toward developed economies in North America and Europe. You tighten too aggressively and you get unwanted disinflation or deflation. You remain too loose and inflation rises. Inflation expectations are rising but they are still anchored in large part due to labour market slack. China faces a completely different macro environment. The PBoC is well behind the curve and may have to become very aggressive in tightening and revalue their currency. That risks a hard landing