US President Donald Trump announced that he had fired Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Trump says that she committed mortgage fraud by taking out two mortgages, claiming both properties as her primary residence, back when she was a professor at Michigan State, before joining the Fed. Naturally, Cook dismissedContinue reading "Should central banks be ‘independent’?"| Michael Roberts Blog
Every August, the regional Kansas City Federal Reserve holds a symposium for the world’s central bankers to consider their role in economic policy and important developments in the world economy. The head of the US Federal Reserve usually presents a summary of how he (or she) sees the state of US economy and what actionContinue reading "Jackson Hole 2025: monetary policy, demography and productivity"| Michael Roberts Blog
It’s mid-summer in the Northern hemisphere, so I thought it might be the time for a quiet review of some books on the trends in the world economy. These are short reviews without much depth and I am excluding new books coming up that deserve fuller accounts. Let’s start with a couple of books thatContinue reading "Dollar decline; the failures of mainstream economics and epochal crisis – reviews"| Michael Roberts Blog
A recent article in the UK’s Financial Times got very excited about the rise of intangibles. The author Tek Parikh said that “50 years go, the assets held by top 500 US companies were predomin…| Michael Roberts Blog
2 posts published by michael roberts during August 2025| Michael Roberts Blog
Last weekend the 18th Congress of the World Association of Political Economy (WAPE) took place in Istanbul, Turkey.. WAPE is a Chinese-run academic economics organisation, linking up with Marxist economists globally. “Even though that might seem like bias, the WAPE forums and journals still provide an important outlet to discuss all the developments in the world capitalist economy fromContinue reading "WAPE 2025: geopolitics, economic models and multi-polarity"| Michael Roberts Blog
Last week, the mega tech companies – the so-called Magnificent Seven – presented their latest earnings results. They appeared to be ‘blockbuster’. They painted a picture of a booming economy,…| Michael Roberts Blog
The Magnificent 7 stocks — NVIDIA, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Apple, Meta, Tesla and Amazon — now make up around 35% of the value of the US stock market, and NVIDIA’s market value makes up about 19% of the Magnificent 7. The S&P 500 has never been more concentrated in a single stock than it isContinue reading "AI: bubbling up"| Michael Roberts Blog
Tomorrow, a key election takes in the G7 economy, Japan. The focus is on whether the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior partner Komeito, which together suffered …| Michael Roberts Blog
“Bitcoin is a speculation and not an investment. Not regulated, not backed by any asset, only worth what someone is willing to pay.” — Matthew Stephenson “It’s totally absolutely crazy, stupi…| Michael Roberts Blog
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Over the weekend President Donald Trump announced a batch of tariff increases on US imports of goods from the closest partners of US trade, Canada and Mexico. He proposed a 25% rise in tariffs (wit…| Michael Roberts Blog
Every year, I do a post on the inequality of global wealth using the annual data compiled by economists working for the Swiss bank, Credit Suisse. But Credit Suisse is now no more, swept away by s…| Michael Roberts Blog
This week, the world’s major central bankers have gathered in the sweltering heat of Sintra, Portugal (although I am sure the the aircon is good in their swanky hotel in the hills). The big issue,…| Michael Roberts Blog
Today, world leaders gather in Seville, Spain for a UN aid summit for developing countries. This is the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development. At least 50 world leaders incl…| Michael Roberts Blog
5 posts published by michael roberts during June 2025| Michael Roberts Blog
Last week the annual conference of the Association for Heterodox Economics (AHE) took place in London. I quote from the AHE website: “Formed in 1999 to provide an annual conference where all heter…| Michael Roberts Blog
As Israel and Iran trade alternate missile attacks after Israel launched a major offensive last week, US President Trump has proposed a two-week interval to negotiate a ‘surrender’ deal with Iran o…| Michael Roberts Blog
As I write, the government leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) countries – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the US – are meeting in the remote town of Kananaskis, Albert…| Michael Roberts Blog
US President Donald Trump’s trade war has forced the governments of the other major economies to reconsider the whole international trading and monetary regime. The international trading ‘rul…| Michael Roberts Blog
South Korea goes to the polls on Tuesday to elect a new president after some tumultuous months following the attempted coup by the right-wing president Yoon Suk-yeol to arrest opposition leaders an…| Michael Roberts Blog
The US House of Representatives, the lower house of Congress, in which the Republican party has a slender majority, has passed President Donald Trump’s government budget proposals. Trump call…| Michael Roberts Blog
Canada has a snap general election today. It’s been called by the new prime minister Mark Carney, the newly elected leader of the incumbent Liberal party government. The Liberals had been led…| Michael Roberts Blog
8 posts published by michael roberts during March 2024| Michael Roberts Blog
Geonomics is a new term for international economic theories and policies. According to Gillian Tett at the FT, in the past, “it was generally assumed that rational economic self interest ruled the…| Michael Roberts Blog
About a year ago, the European Union’s Commission asked Mario Draghi to write a landmark report on the future of Europe’s economy. Draghi is a former Goldman Sachs banker, former head of the…| Michael Roberts Blog
The Failure of Capitalist Production is the title of Andrew Kliman’s new book – with the subtitle, The underlying causes of the Great Recession ( AK’s book is an important contrib…| Michael Roberts Blog
Did the US rate of profit trend upwards from 1982 and when did it peak? The debate/argument continues among Marxist economists. And behind this debate about the facts is the analysis. If the rat…| Michael Roberts Blog
There was a tortuous and painful end to COP29, the international climate change conference held in oil-rich Baku, Azerbaijan. The main issue was how much would the rich countries hand over to the p…| Michael Roberts Blog
The first estimate of third quarter real GDP growth in the US was released yesterday. It showed the US economy expanded by an annualised rate of 4.9%. The Financial Times called this a “blisterin…| Michael Roberts Blog
The US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) has just updated its estimates of net fixed capital stock in the US economy. This gives us the opportunity to measure the US rate …| Michael Roberts Blog
The Keynesians got very excited last year when the IMF came out with its October semi-annual report on the world economy and announced that its previous estimate of the fiscal multipliers was too l…| Michael Roberts Blog
This is a big week for the central banks of the major economies. The US Federal Reserve meets on Wednesday to decide on whether to resume its planned series of hikes in its policy rate that sets t…| Michael Roberts Blog
The IMF-World Bank semi-annual meeting starts this week. Earlier the IMF kicked off the show with a warning that the poor countries of the world are heading for a catastrophe from the pandemic slu…| Michael Roberts Blog
Last week the World Bank issued its latest Global Economic Prospects. The WB economists reckon that the world economy “is stabilising” in 2024, the first time in three years. …| Michael Roberts Blog
Today, elections take place in two large provincial states (Lander) in eastern Germany All the opinion polls show that the Eurosceptic, anti-immigrant, Russia-friendly parties of both the extreme …| Michael Roberts Blog
Elections for the European Assembly or European Union (EU) parliament finish today. Citizens in 27 member states of the EU are voting for 720 members of the Assembly. Current opinion po…| Michael Roberts Blog
After a relatively strong US real GDP figure for the third quarter of the year, the consensus is that the US will not have a recession this year or next. Indeed, on the contrary, investment banker…| Michael Roberts Blog
Every August the world’s top central bankers meet in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, a ski resort in central US for a ‘symposium’ organized by the Kansas City Federal Reserve. The bankers take this opportu…| Michael Roberts Blog
In a recent post, I reviewed an important new book by Brazilian Marxist economists Adalmir Antonio Marquetti, Alessandro Miebach and Henrique Morrone. They proposed a model of economic development…| Michael Roberts Blog
The overthrow of the Sheikh Hasina’s dictatorial government in Bangladesh by students and the populace last week is a startling outcome of the economic nightmare that many so-called developing econ…| Michael Roberts Blog
Last week’s meltdown in the stock markets of the major economies, which started in the US, reversed this week. But the fall in the US S&P-500 index of the stock prices of the top 500 American c…| Michael Roberts Blog
The recent nonsense issued by the US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on China’s ‘overcapacity’ and ‘unfair subsidies’ to its industries is particularly pathetic. As Renaud Bertrand put it: “t…| Michael Roberts Blog
In Q2 2023 the Chinese economy expanded by 6.3% year-on-year, up from 4.5% yoy recorded in Q1. Sounds strong, but quarterly growth was only 0.8%, slowing sharply from 2.2% qoq in the first qu…| Michael Roberts Blog
This week the 5th plenum of the Chinese Communist Party central committee is taking place. The plenum is to discuss the progress of the Chinese economy and to decide on real GDP growth and other t…| Michael Roberts Blog
In Q1 2024, global stock markets recorded their best first-quarter performance in five years, buoyed by hopes of a soft economic landing in the US and enthusiasm about artificial intelligence. &nbs…| Michael Roberts Blog
China’s reaction to Donald Trump’s trade war has been to retaliate with its own tariffs on US exports to China, particularly agricultural/food exports like soybeans. Also the government has allowe…| Michael Roberts Blog
There is a new book out called Capitalism without capital – the rise of the intangible economy. The authors, by Jonathan Haskel of Imperial College and Stian Westlake of Nesta, are out to emphasis…| Michael Roberts Blog
Financial markets may be booming in the expectation that the US economy will grow faster under President Trump. But they forget that the main emphasis of Trump’s programme, in so far as it is cohe…| Michael Roberts Blog
Last weekend the 17th Congress of the World Association of Political Economy (WAPE) took place in Athens, Greece. WAPE is a Chinese-run academic economics organisation, linking up with Marxis…| Michael Roberts Blog
At yesterday’s end July meeting, the US Federal Reserve Bank held back from cutting its policy interest rate from the current high of 5.25-5.5%. This was despite recognizing that the US econo…| Michael Roberts Blog
Venezuela has a general election tomorrow. This promises to be a decisive election that could see the end of the so-called Chavista governments, first under Hugo Chávez from 1998-2013 (o…| Michael Roberts Blog
The Third Plenum of the Communist Party of China ended last week. The Third Plenum is a meeting of China’s Communist Party Central Committee composed of 364 members which discusses China’s economi…| Michael Roberts Blog
The massive tech failure that caused chaos around the world raises important questions about the ownership and control of our digital world. The relatively unknown, cyber-security firm CrowdStrike…| Michael Roberts Blog
Brazilian Marxist economists Adalmir Antonio Marquetti, Alessandro Miebach and Henrique Morrone have produced an important and insightful book on global capitalist development, with an innovative n…| Michael Roberts Blog
The 2024 conference of the Association of Heterodox Economists (AHE) took place this week in Bristol, England. As its name implies, the AHE brings together economists who consider themselves …| Michael Roberts Blog
There’s been Abenomics in Japan; Modinomics in India and Bidenomics in the US. Now we have Securonomics in Britain. This is slick terminology for the basics of the UK’s new Labour gover…| Michael Roberts Blog
UK citizens vote in a general election on 4 July. The opinion polls currently forecast that the incumbent Conservative party will be heavily defeated after 14 years in government. The o…| Michael Roberts Blog
In 2023, it was the first time in recorded history that the global surface temperature of the planet breached 2.0°C above the 1850-1900 IPCC baseline. Also more than 90% of the world’s oceans…| Michael Roberts Blog
About this time last year, I tackled the subject of artificial intelligence (AI) and the impact of the new generalised intelligence language learning models (LLMs) like ChatGPT etc. In that post I …| Michael Roberts Blog
US corporate profit margins are at record highs, despite slowing price inflation and rising wage increases. Looking at the whole US economy, non-financial sector profit margins are at their h…| Michael Roberts Blog
In 2023, US real GDP grew by 2.5% after inflation – much better than expected. This has been heralded by the media and mainstream economists as refuting the doomsayers that the US economy was head…| Michael Roberts Blog
The annual meeting of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) is underway right now. The NPC is officially China’s highest deliberative body, ostensibly deciding economic and social policies…| Michael Roberts Blog
Last week, Zambia reached a deal for relief on nearly $4bn owed to private bondholders, raising hopes that a protracted debt restructuring by Africa’s second-largest copper producer was nearing its…| Michael Roberts Blog
