Home » Posts tagged 'growth' (Page 2)

Tag Archives: growth

Growth is … ?

Posted on by | 16 Comments

“Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.”
– Kenneth Boulding

The figure for growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth for the second quarter came in, and it wasn’t bad – 2.3%, and the revision to the first quarter was a positive if sluggish 0.6%. Like so many economic figures it’s not great but it’s also not bad. We’re still muddling through this year hoping to make it through to better times ahead.

But will there be better times? The Federal Reserve accidentally posted on its website, briefly, some internal estimates from their own economists that show that where 2015 and 2016 won’t be too bad, with growth in the 2.3-2.4% range, it may taper off after that. But can we expect better? Should we, for that matter, expect more growth from the economy?

Or is one of the big changes in this new economy a much lower growth rate than we are used to?

Continue reading →

What is Software Worth?

Posted on by | 12 Comments

When is the value of something not its true value? When you’re adding up Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of course. That may sound ridiculous, given that the rise and occasional fall of GDP is the yardstick by which we measure how we’re doin’ as an economy. Isn’t it just the sum total of all the goods and services that we produce?

The short answer is “no”, but the long answer is “yes”. It depends a lot on what you mean by “goods” or “service” or “produce”. If that sounds like a huge amount of fudge for something so important, you may want to just enjoy the chocolate induced coma for a bit. Because some goods, like computers and software, have been falling in price but increasing in potential and quality dramatically for a while. Hardware is “hedonically adjusted” to take care of this, but software isn’t. And that difference might be extremely important.

Continue reading →

Inflation? Naw.

Posted on by | 11 Comments

After years of low interest rates and quantitative easing that amounts to more or less printing $4.5T, it would be easy to predict that inflation is bound to rise eventually. More dollars means, by supply and demand, that they have to be worth less, yes?

But the opposite is happening as the US economy charges ahead as the strongest economy in the developed world. While we have stopped stimulating our economy, Japan and Europe are only accelerating their programs. The US is poised to lose the currency war with the strongest currency standing – and a guarantee of lower prices for a lot more than just gasoline in the near future.

Continue reading →

6 Myths About the Economy

Posted on by | 6 Comments

If you pay attention to social media, or even just talk amongst your friends, you may have heard some awful things about the economy.  Many people, Republican and Democrat, are convinced that things are simply not improving.  The feeling tends to be stronger among Republicans, especially Tea Partiers, who believe that socialist policies are still killing us.  But the mood crosses party lines rather fluidly.

It boils down to six persistent myths about our economy today.  Some are based on old news, taken from horror stories from the depths of this depression around 2010.  Some are simply wrong.  But all of them reinforce the emotional reason why this is indeed a depression, a dark feeling shared across society.  It’s also rather wrong.  Let’s run them down.

Continue reading →

Exit the Eurocrisis – Slowly

Posted on by | 12 Comments

Now that the Eurozone Crisis is over, we can all breathe a little easier. Right? While it’s good to not be loping along from one crisis to the next, the aftermath of the flood that lasted from 2008-2012 in drips and drops is still being mopped up. The hits are just being absorbed by the banks and growth is going to be sub-par through 2014, meaning that the lingering unemployment problem is not going away.

There are two parts left to this clean-up – what comes next and what can we learn? They are both important and will dominate 2014 in Europe and the developed world.

Continue reading →