economics

The second consequence of plunging elite incomes is increased intraelite competition.

There was a second feature underlying the automakers’ success: the industrial policy pursued by the Japanese government, through its Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI). It pursued a strategy of exporting cars to developed countries, guided by a devalued currency and relatively cheaper wages.

MITI provided ample amounts of

When any one global market (even one as big as the United States) is the only one to reach a new high, it qualifies as a global divergence.

Having fewer users can be a good thing. According to Vicente, a large, diverse customer base is both the strength and weakness of big companies, leaving them to cater to mainstream use cases, and giving startups “the opportunity” to disrupt the market by “introduc[ing] a new way of doing things” that’s “just too radical, typically, for the

Whenever mortgage rates drop to new lower-lows, homeowners have a big incentive to refinance their mortgage rates. Paying off a previous 6% mortgage with a new 4.5% mortgage can free up a lot of disposable income each month, and without increasing a homeowner’s overall debt load. And then, years later, paying off that 4.5% mortgage with a newer 3%

As I will show, some of these responses require an unsustainable increase in debt, and so are temporary. There are, it turns out, two sustainable responses to a forced increase in the savings rate in one part of the economy. The first is an equivalent increase in productive investment. The second is an increase in unemployment.

First, the Indian corporate bond market is highly skewed and accessible only to large, established, and high-rated firms. Over 80% of bonds issued are rated AA and above.

intangibles like patents and other forms of knowledge. And that’s around when companies started holding on to more cash