economics

It was inserted partly in the hope of boosting the worker’s weekly income, and partly in the hope that, by discouraging the employer from taking on anyone regularly for more than forty hours a week, it would force him to employ additional workers instead.

not everyone who studies AI’s impact is so bullish. With generative AI poised to automate an increasing number of business activities—as much as 70 percent , according to McKinsey—critics worry there simply won’t be enough work left over for most workers to do. For the first time in history, the argument goes, technology’s substituting force will

Final Thoughts: Three Pillars Reiterated

I continue to view a three-pillar portfolio as an ideal framework for risk-managed investing.

A classic “60/40” stock and bond portfolio consists of two asset types that both prefer disinflation. Stocks generally prefer disinflationary growth, and bonds generally prefer disinflationary contraction. They’ve

In the Treasury market, following several consecutive days of deteriorating conditions, market participants reported an acute decline in market liquidity. A number of primary dealers found it especially difficult to make markets in off-the-run Treasury securities and reported that this segment of the market had ceased to function effectively. This

Internet has destroyed many long-established business models – in advertising (Yellow Pages), media (newspapers), retailing (bookshops), and entertainment (music industry and video rental). Investors who underestimated the disruptive impact of new technology have lost money.35 The capital cycle also ceases to function properly when policymakers

Commodity prices often change direction ahead of bonds, which also makes them leading indicators of bonds at important turning points.

For several years before the pandemic, the Indian banking sector was embroiled in a crisis that manifested in the form of rapidly rising non-performing assets (NPAs) on the balance sheets of banks. NPAs were triggered by large-scale defaults in the corporate sector, with the bulk being reflected on the balance sheets of inadequately capitalised

It is enough to summarize the key liquidity events that preceded the booms.

The Birth of Horticultural Societies

For most of the history of our species, a history that is lost to the sands of time, Homo sapiens were hunter-gatherers. We spent most of our waking hours acquiring food. This meant gathering berries, harvesting local plant life, and hunting live animals for their meat. Hunter-gatherer societies had to be