How do you tell the story of plutocratic crime? If you’re Cory Doctorow, you write a detective novel about a forensic accountant. It’s a must-read book that sheds light on the often-ignored world of elite finance.

Nitzan and Bichler show that the ratio of net interest to profit is strongly related to the rate of unemployment. Here’s my take on their research, along with some data updates.

Do higher interest rate increase unemployment? I look at the evidence and find it lacking.

Are interest rates a neutral policy variable? Or are they a tool for class warfare? It turns out that the evidence speaks for itself. Here are three ways that higher interest rates redistribute income.

I look at the class battle between wage workers and creditors, and how this struggle relates to inflation.

Using standard tools of economic analysis, I show that the key to reducing inflation is to raise wages as fast as possible.

There is strong evidence that higher interest rates don’t mitigate inflation. Instead, they might make it worse. I wade through the details here.

According to economic orthodoxy, higher interest rates reduce inflation. In this post, I hold your monetary faith to the fire. Can it survive?

Low energy growth tends to come with high inflation — what economists call ‘stagflation’. But what causes what? I have a look here.

I use World Bank data to test Nitzan and Bichler’s ‘stagflation thesis’ — the idea that inflation in the midst of economic stagnation is the norm.

Here are my most popular posts of 2022. Thanks for reading!