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Welcome to my homepage. Here you will find the papers and research I am working on and other items which might be of varying degrees of interest to you.
You can also find a link to helpful information on the courses I teach, including the syllabi.
Thanks again,
Cameron
Brooklyn, New York USA
contact: cameron_weber@hotmail.com
The recent Frazier Institute map of economic freedom
What I think are some good and accessible reports on the economy:
"The average American is much better off now than four decades ago", Economist, March 31, 2018. Measurement begins with statistics. Inflation measures are by-definition arbitrary in that everyone has their own "basket of goods" which they purchase, and income is recorded using different measures as well. The Economist has found that if you use Congressional Budget Office stats, which include transfer payments and non-wage benefits, and accounting for taxes and a broader range of inflation figures than the Census Bureau, that median household income steadily improved until the Great Recession and has been rising for the last several years as well.
"World is Bracing as Era of Easy Money is Ending", P. Goodman, New York Times (NYT), February 7, 2018. Central bank monetary easing creates asset bubbles in real estate, art and stock markets as time-preferences get distorted. Monetary contraction pops or "corrects" these bubbles. Central bank manipulation of the interest rate for fiat-monies exacerbates business-cycles.
"Digital Currency: Tales from the crypto-nation, a banking centre seeks to reinvent itself", Economist, Feb. 24th, 2018. Switzerland is encouraging block-chain based currencies by allowing firms to list in Zurich with e-currency denominated Financial Statements. Competition against fiat-currencies means better currencies.
"China launches dumping probe into US sorghum imports amid rising trade tension", Reuters, February 4, 2018. Trades wars escalate and can lead to real war.
"What's in the G.O.P Tax Bill, and How it Will Affect You", R. Leiber and T.S. Bernard, New York Times (NYT), December 17, 2017. Tinkering around the edges, but we see a reduction in the incentives for debt-creation, with reduced ability to write-off interest payments in the tax-code for real estate investment. Debt creation leads to financialization of the economy and super-profits for the finance oligarchy. We see repatriation of capital due to reduced corporate income tax penalties for doing so.
"Myths of the 1 Percent: What Puts Some People at the Top", J. Rothwell, NYT, November 24, 2017. Those working in sectors protected from competition by government policy continuously earn super-profits and create wealth faster than everyone else.
The Government Accountability Office (USA GAO)'s latest 'high-risk' report: "The Nation's Fiscal Health: Action is Needed to Adress the Federal Government's Fiscal Future", January 2017. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are unsustainable under our current fiscal policy but the vast majority of our elected officials ignore this.
Edmund Phelps, New York Review of Books, "What is Wrong with the West's Economies?", August 2015. Utilitarian and Rawlsian philosophies as manifested in policy in the modern welfare state has reduced self-determination, entrepreneurship and human creativity.
For fans of economics, here is a photo of the Economics Faculty building in Belgrade, Serbia (the center of economics for the former Yugoslavia).
From BYO Records, UK and from Nancy Folbre's website.
Here's Hayek's 1944 Road to Serfdom in cartoons, courtesy of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE).
Paul Kelpe, Machinery (Abstract #2), 1933-34.
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