By Rhod Mackenzie The day following the most significant plunge in oil prices within the last year or so, its precipitous fall persisted. Within a couple of days, Brent has dropped to its lowest point since the summer and has lost over 14% of its value from its apex one week ago. The market now […]
Inflation is plaguing consumer markets, putting pressure on the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to tighten the money supply. But as Rex Nutting writes in a MarketWatch column titled “Why Interest Rates Aren’t Really the Right Tool to Control Inflation”: It may be heresy to those who think the Fed is all-powerful, but the honest answer […]
Reviewed by Francis Lee for The Saker Blog It would be true to say that in official or mainstream ‘left’ political circles the economic theories of J.M.Keynes (1883-1946) enjoy a
The Petrodollar is gaining strength. So is the Petroruble, to coin a phrase.
Yes, that was a pun.
The truth is that over the last twelve months, oil prices have been gradually and steadily on the increase. At the beginning of 2017, the price for a barrel of crude was about $56. It sunk gradually until June of last year, bottoming out in the mid $40’s, and has been on the rise again ever since.
Nothing can be dismissed a priori as a fad, and nothing can be declared a priori as a valuable item destined to be a classic. There is no way to know for sure. This is because what we call value is ultimately bound up with the individual human mind.
In the real world, prices often seem far above marginal cost. If you're steeped in the perfectly competitive model, where price always equals marginal cost, it's easy to feel "ripped off" whenever you make a purchase. The obvious rebuttal is to point to all the fixed costs of production, but this greatly understates what a fantastic deal we consumers get.
The basic principle of the post-industrial, post-modern theory of value and surplus value is that the human species produces surpluses of all types and kinds, regardless of his or her situation and/or social position. As a result, for the post-industrial, post-modern theory of value and surplus value, the human species by definition is constantly immersed in an existential process of value and surplus value production, wherever he or she is stationed in the capitalist socio-economic hierarchy.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) announced on October 4th, 2016 that plans to reduce opioid manufacturing by 25% next year are underway, citing a shrinking market and the epidemic of abuse as primary reasons.
The official change, or Final Order, has been published in the Federal Register. And, as The Verge reports:
