Tuesday, August 8th, 2017
Stephan: Remember the TTP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, that international trade agreement Trump dumped as soon as he became president promising life would be better for his devoted followers. Not. Like all his decisions as president exiting the TPP is already and will become ever more a disaster for the U.S. As you read this, bear in mind the Chinese One Road-One Belt trade strategy that is going to transform trade in Asia, and as far away as Europe, making China the world leader in trade. All of this is just another aspect of the diminishment of America, with the greatest impact affecting those rural Whites who voted for Trump.
To be fair I have to say that Bernie Sanders was also against TPP, and he was also wrong.
EAGLE GROVE, IOWA — On a cloud-swept landscape dotted with grain elevators, a meat producer called Prestage Farms is building a 700,000-square-foot processing plant. The gleaming new factory is both the great hope of Wright County, which voted by a 2-1 margin for Donald Trump, and the victim of one of Trump’s first policy moves, his decision to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
For much of industrial America, the TPP was a suspect deal, the successor to the North American Free Trade Agreement, which some argue led to a massive offshoring of U.S. jobs to Mexico. But for the already struggling agricultural sector, the sprawling 12-nation TPP, covering 40 percent of the world’s economy, was a lifeline. It was a chance to erase punishing tariffs that restricted the United States — the onetime “breadbasket of the world” — from selling its meats, grains and dairy products to massive importers of foodstuffs such as Japan and Vietnam.
The decision to pull out of the trade deal has become a double hit on places like Eagle Grove. The promised bump of $10 billion […]
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Tuesday, August 8th, 2017
Chris Doucouliagos, Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, Deakin Business School and Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University - The Conversation
Stephan: It is an article of faith amongst Republicans that trickle down economics is the policy to pursue. Now we have some actual data. Not surprisingly like everything else in Republican economics this theory is crap.
Having only a few people with most of the wealth, motivates others. This theory is actually wrong according to research.
Credit: Aakkosia sosialistien lapsille (1912)/Flickr
A world where a few people have most of the wealth motivates others who are poor to strive to earn more. And when they do, they’ll invest in businesses and other areas of the economy. That’s the argument for inequality. But it’s wrong.
Our study of 21 OECD countries over more than a 100 years shows income inequality actually restricts people from earning more, educating themselves and becoming entrepreneurs. That flows on to businesses who in turn invest less in things like plant and equipment.
Inequality makes it harder for economies to benefit from innovation. However, if people have access to credit or the money to move up, it can offset this effect.
We measured the impact of this by looking at the number of patents for new inventions and then also looking at the Gini coefficient and the income share of the top 10%. The Gini coefficient is a measure of the distribution […]
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Marlynn Wei, M.D., J.D., - Psychology Today
Stephan: On June 1st SR published the first report on this potentially life altering research, linking depression with inflammation; very good news indeed. Here is another take on this subject, which also includes some good recommendations about how to fight inflammation holistically.
Reading this reminded me of the work of two obscure Australian physicians, Barry Marshall and Robin Warren, who turned medicine on its head when they proved that ulcers were not the result of stress as the medical establishment was certain was the case, but were actually the result of Helicobacter pylori, a bacterium with affinity for acidic environments, such as the stomach, and that the correct treatment was not antacids, but antibiotics. They were ignored for years but ended up winning the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology 2005.
Hopefully with this new research on inflammation we can begin to effectively treat at least some of the depression which afflicts hundreds of millions around the world.
Source Citation: Soledad Cepeda, M., Stang, P., & Makadia R. (2016) Depression Is Associated With High Levels of C-Reactive Protein and Low Levels of Fractional Exhaled Nitric Oxide: Results From the 2007-2012 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys. J Clin Psychiatry. 1666-71.
Credit: Everyday Health
One traditional hypothesis of depression is that people who are depressed have a deficiency in monoamine neurotransmitters in the body, which leads to low levels of neurotransmitters like serotonin and norephinephrine in the brain. But growing evidence supports that at least some forms of depression may also be linked to ongoing low-grade inflammation in the body.
Previous studies have linked depression with higher level of inflammatory markers compared to people who are not depressed. When people are given proinflammatory cytokines, people experience more symptoms of depression and anxiety. Chronically higher levels of inflammation due to medical illnesses are also associated with higherrates of depression. Even brain imaging of people with depression show that their brain scans have increased neuroinflammation. When your body is in an inflammatory state fighting off the common cold or flu, you can experience symptoms overlapping with depression— disrupted sleep, depressed mood, fatigue, foggy-headedness, and impaired Read the Full Article
