What We Read Today 31 May 2014

Econintersect: Every day our editors collect the most interesting things they find from around the internet and present a summary “reading list” which will include very brief summaries of why each item has gotten our attention. Suggestions from readers for “reading list” items are gratefully reviewed, although sometimes space limits the number included.

• BLS Employment Projections Through 2022: How Many Jobs Require a College Degree? (Mike Shedlock, MISH’S Global Economic Trend Analysis) Shedlock calculates that only 2.7 million of the 15.6 million jobs the BLS projects will be created over the next eight years will require a college degree. However, he says, many employers may insist on college degrees because there will be a glut on the market.

• Thomas Piketty: Capitalism in Its Current Form Undermines Democracy (Thomas Piketty, Truth-out.org) This is an excerpt from the introduction of the book Capital in the Twenty-First Century. There are extended discussions of three other articles about the debate over Piketty’s results and methods ‘behind the wall’.

• Kenneth Rogoff is an Even Worse Criminologist than Economist (William K. Black, New Economic Perspectives) William K. Black has contributed to GEI. Prof. Black has critical remarks about Prof. Rogoff’s recent Financial Times article (see next article below). Black’s criticism centers on what he says is Rogoff “ignoring the three epidemics of accounting control fraud that drove the most recent U.S. financial crisis“. Black says Rogoff’s omissions are “bizarre“. Black says that, because Rogoff ignores control fraud, the proposed conversion to electronic currency would fail:

“… because of the powerful incentives created by the international “race to the bottom” among jurisdictions. The real nations that aid money laundering (who are not on FATF’s list of purportedly non-compliant nations) and the real banks (HSBC) that aid the world’s most violent drug gangs launder huge amounts of money will continue to have powerful incentives to offer anonymous currency.”

• Paper money is unfit for a world of high crime and low inflation (Kenneth Rogoff, Financial Times) This is a repeat from ‘behind the wall’ yesterday. Eliminating paper money and going to electronic money only would kill two birds with one stone, according to Rogoff. (1) Negative interest rates could be implemented. (2) Tax evasion and and illegal transactions would be impossible without detection because anonymity of money would be no more. Econintersect guesses that Rogoff will never be a libertarian.

Today there are 11 articles discussed ‘behind the wall’.

Today we discuss three more articles about Thomas Piketty’s methods and results in Capital in the Twenty-First Century.

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