Unit Labour Costs for Dummies and German Business Journalists

March 8, 2020 | Gabor Steingart, former editor of the German business daily Handelsblatt, and currently building an editorial ship* to be based in Berlin, has peered beyond the fog of exaggerated discussions on climate change and the corona virus. He has identified rising unit labour costs as Germany’s real problem. It is leading to Germany’s decline, and a loss of competitiveness. A knowledgeable look at what unit labour costs are could sweep aside his concern. …

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How does Germany’s Monopolies Commission combat market concentration? By making sure that no good data is available

How many companies have merged into corporate groups in Germany? We don’t know. The official figures are completely unconvincing. We have a Monopolies Commission which, together with the German Federal Statistical Office, has the legal mandate to monitor market concentration. Germany’s parliament wanted to ensure that the necessary information about the possible emergence of problematic market power is available, only to discover this no longer fits in with the neoliberal ideology inspired by the Chicago School, which has apparently become the ruling ideology at Germany’s Monopolies Commission.

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Bundesbank corrects textbook mistakes on money creation, rejects 100%-money

In the April-edition of their monthly report, the Bundesbank has belatedly joined the Bank of England in explicitly stating that the treatment of banks and money creation in most textbooks is wrong: banks are not intermediaries; they create money ex-nihilo. This helps the Bundesbank to reject criticism that central banks are currently “printing” too much money. At the same time, the Bundesbank rejects the proposal of 100%-money, i.e. bank deposits fully backed by central bank money.

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