One of the most common definitions of economics is the study of the allocation of limited resources: how we use what we have, what we value, and why. There have been plenty of studies done on how economics works on earth. But what about in space?
We talk to NASA astronaut Doug "Wheels" Wheelock, who explains how the principles of economics guided trades of goods and services on the International Space Station. He also describes how his experiences changed how he values things often taken for granted on Earth, like birds, wind, and the rain.
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Economic assistance comes with pitfalls | Jeffrey Scharf, Everybody's Business – Santa Cruz
Biden's first two economic priorities seem to be sending out an additional $1,400 one-time COVID payment to qualifying recipients and raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour nationwide.
COVID recipients and their dependents of any age qualify whether or not they lost their jobs or any part of their income. The full payment would go to every couple with less than $150,000 in Adjusted Gross income and phase out gradually thereafter. Payments could go to large families with as much as $430,000 of income. The total cost of the CASH Act is estimated to be $465 billion.
Topsy turvy - Have banks now got too much cash? | Finance & economics | The Economist
One explanation is that the trading desks and investment banks housed in most big banks have fared well, thanks to a rush of initial public offerings and booming markets. Profits were sky-high at banks that earn most of their revenues from investment banking and trading. Goldman Sachs made $4.5bn in the fourth quarter, half its annual profits in 2020. JPMorgan Chase's investment-banking profits in the same quarter almost doubled on the year.
This bonanza is a victory for those who spent the past decade attempting to make banks safer. In the past investment-bank earnings were more tied to the economy, thanks to fat portfolios of assets like mortgage-backed securities. Now banks must hold so much capital against volatile assets that they do not bother. When markets whipsawed last year they earned the upside (bumper trading revenues) without the downside (losses on volatile assets).
Free exchange - What is the link between economic crises and political ruptures?
W HEN DO ECONOMIC crises have destabilising political effects? Economic anxiety in the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2007-09 sparked a political backlash—fuelling, for instance, the Brexit campaign in Britain. President Donald Trump drew support from America's neglected rust belt. The Depression of the 1930s wrought much more devastating political consequences in Europe. The question seems pertinent again, given the economic and social trauma caused by the covid-19 pandemic.
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Continuing Job Losses Put Spotlight on Economic Relief - The New York Times
Even as it tries to right a shipwrecked economy, the Biden administration confronted fresh evidence of weakness Thursday with the report of nearly a million new state unemployment claims, heightening calls for fresh stimulus efforts.
The scale of the job losses underscores the fragility of the job market as overall economic momentum slows amid the worsening pandemic. What's more, key provisions of the $900 billion aid package passed by Congress last month will lapse in mid-March, well before economists expect mass vaccinations to help the economy rebound.
Southern tiger - China's regional gap is worsening | Finance & economics | The Economist
"D ON'T INVEST beyond Shanhaiguan" is a popular quip in China, referring to a pass in the Great Wall that leads to the north-eastern rust belt. Online pundits have updated the maxim to "don't invest outside the Southern Song", a dynasty that fell almost 750 years ago whose territory was roughly the same as China's southern half today. The joke has a nub of truth: China's southern provinces are outperforming the north in nearly every economic dimension.
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Figures released on January 18th showed that China's GDP grew by 2.3% in 2020. The recovery was unbalanced, with factories at full throttle but consumption subdued. That should improve after the pandemic ends. The north-south imbalance, though, is likely to outlast it.
Biden to sign two executive orders on Covid economic relief, worker protections
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden plans to sign two executive orders Friday to address the economic toll of the coronavirus pandemic , including expanding food stamps and beginning the process to require that everyone working for the federal government get a minimum wage of $15 an hour.
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Biden's "all-of-government" effort will ask the Agriculture Department to increase by 15 percent a Covid-19 food assistance program that provides nutritional assistance to families with children who would normally receive free or reduced-price lunches when schools were in regular sessions, as well as expand the emergency increase in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits authorized by Congress to include those at the lowest income levels.
Why economists get so many of their predictions wrong
Sometimes the study of economics – which has gone on for at least 250 years – can take a wrong turn. Many economists would like to believe their discipline is more advanced than ever, but in the most important economics book of 2020 two leading British economists argue that, in its efforts to become more "rigorous", it's gone seriously astray.
The book is Radical Uncertainty: Decision-making for an unknowable future , by Professor John Kay of Oxford University and Professor Mervyn King, a former governor of the Bank of England.
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