How food affects political regimes

Apparently, a richer diet is associated with an increase in the middle class, which tends towards economic and political independence and democracy-fostering values. Andrey Shcherbak, Senior Research Fellow, Laboratory for Comparative Social Research of the Higher School of Economics, has found, based on a cross-country comparative study using data on 157 countries, that a change in people’s eating habits can …

Alternative Visions – Japan’s Perpetual Recession Economy: QEs, Negative Rates, and Helicopters – 08.12.16

Jack reviews the current condition of Japan’s economy, after 8 years of virtual perpetual recession despite record QE central bank injections, negative interest rates, and talk of helicopter money. The Central Bank of Japan as harbinger of global capitalist central banks policy direction and innovation. How central banks-bank of japan free money policies are not only no longer working, but are now having contrary negative effects on the global economy. Japan’s history of monetary policy first, plus austerity, since 1991 has doomed it to perpetual recessions—8 since 1991 and 5 since 2008. Japan as innovator of QE and negative rate policies. The results in creating trillions of non-performing bank loans (NPLs) and more than $13 trillion in negative bond rates since 2014 are reviewed. Growing NPLs and negative rates as indicators of failing capitalist monetary policies as investment slows, productivity declines, wages stagnate and real consumption falters worldwide. Why global economies are about to shift in 2017 to more fiscal infrastructure spending—but will do so ‘too little and too late’ to prevent recessions in 2017.