Yearly Archives: 2011

Randy Wray: A PROGRESSIVE APPROACH TO FEDERAL BUDGETING – Or, Can One Take Billionaire Pete Peterson’s Money and Remain Progressive?

By L. Randall Wray, a Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Cross posted from FireDogLake

Yves Smith set off a firestorm in her criticism of several progressive groups that have joined forces with Pete Peterson to whip up deficit hysteria. There are three issues that need to be addressed:

1. Can a progressive take tainted money and remain progressive?
2. Did the Roosevelt Institute (in particular) take tainted money and remain progressive?
3. What would a progressive approach to federal budgeting look like?

Links 7/6/11

Are Self-Dealing Parties Settling $242 Billion of Bank of America Liabilities for Way Too Little?

A petition filed by some unhappy investors on Tuesday raises some serious challenges to the so-called Bank of America mortgage settlement. The embattled bank hopes to shed liability for alleged misrepresentations made by Countrywide on loans sold in 530 mortgage trusts with $424 billion in par value. We said it was a bad deal for investors because, among other things, it included a very broad waiver of a very valuable right, that of being able to sue over so-called chain of title issues (in very crude terms, whether the parties to the deal did all the things they promised to do to convey the loans properly to the mortgage trust).

This action raises three sets of different issues: the conflicts of interest among the parties trying to push this deal through, the process used to finalize the deal, which this pleading contends were devised to give the other investors short shrift; and the inadequate amount of the settlement, not only for parties that have tried to move their own putback litigation forward, but arguably for all parties.

Jon Rynn: A Fracking Mess – Natural Gas is Not the Fuel of the Future

By Jon Rynn, author of the book Manufacturing Green Prosperity: The power to rebuild the American middle class. He holds a Ph.D. in political science and is a Visiting Scholar at the CUNY Institute for Urban Systems. Cross posted from New Deal 2.0.

Between questionable science, health hazards, and exorbitant costs, there’s no fracking way that drilling for natural gas will solve our long-term energy issues.

Guest Post: Lifeforms Can Clean Up Radiation … Naturally

When BP spilled huge quantities of oil into the Gulf, the company and the government ignored natural ways to help clean up the mess, and instead dumped toxic dispersants into the Gulf which actually made things worse.

Likewise – believe it or not – there may be natural ways to help clean up radiation from Fukushima and elsewhere, and to reduce human and animal exposure to radioactive elements.

Links 7/5/11

Ron Paul Suggests Using Fed to End Run Debt Ceiling Impasse

The only reason to think Republicans are serious about their threat to have the Federal government default rather than raise the debt ceiling is that they have an undue fondness for apocalyptic outcomes. I suppose I should actually favor this sort of thing; I’ve long thought the only hope for getting the US freed from rule by financiers was another financial crisis, provided it came soon enough and it was big enough. This one might fit the bill on those scores.

However, with the immediate trigger being pigheaded Congressmen, the banks might look like innocent victims, when the ballooning of public debt around the world was the direct result of their recklessness and the resultant global economy near-death experience. So a debt-ceiling-row-induced great big financial dislocation would probably not produce the opportunity to break the power of banks that yours truly and many others are looking for.

As the hour of reckoning approaches, more and more creative ideas to disarm the Republican weapon are being put forward, and an intriguing one comes from, of all places, a Republican, Ron Paul.

Guest Post: Fukushima Cover Up Unravels

The cover up unravels in Japan … and England.

Links Independence Day

You can click through to find a more typical antidote too.

Summer Rerun – The Empire Continues to Strike Back: Team Obama Propaganda Campaign Reaches Fever Pitch

Readers new to this site may be unfamiliar with our summer reruns, in which we reprise vintage NC posts that we think have stood the test of time pretty well.

We’ve done these more or less in chronological order (our last one was our post on the unveiling of the TARP), but we decided to skip ahead to one in 2010 because it focuses on a crucial bit of history that is too often overlooked, and were were reminded of it by a very good Frank Rich piece in New York Magazine on Obama’s failure to bring bankers to account.

Even Rich’s solid piece treats Obama more kindly that he should be. He depicts the President as too easily won over by “the best and the brightest) in the guise of folks like Robert Rubin and his protege Timothy Geithner.

We think this characterization is far too charitable. Obama had a window in time in which he could have acted, decisively, to rein the financial services in, and he and his aides chose to let it pass and throw their lot in with the banksters. That fatal decision has severely constrained their freedom of action, as we explain below.

Partying on the Edge of the Eurozone Volcano

The Financial Times has two heated articles (relative to the each writer’s normal emotional register) on the continuing Greece neverending bailout saga, one from Wolfgang Munchau, the other from John Dizard. Munchau and Dizard reach the same conclusion from different fact sets: the latest Greek patch-up exercise is only going to make matters worse, politically and economically.

Links 7/3/11

Could DSK Run for French President?

Despite the groundswell of sympathetic coverage of Dominique Strauss-Kahn in France, following revelations of what look to be terminal problems with prosecution’s case against him on sexual assault charges, it appears that the Socialist Party is unwilling to adjust its election timetable to facilitate a bid for the presidency. But that does not mean his candidacy is impossible if he is cleared of charges in the next couple of months.

Look What You Can Buy in the Greek Liquidation Sale!

Sorry if you were looking for listing of the various Greek assets on offer. You need to be a really heavyweight investor (and have been verified as such) to get a real viewing. And you are late if you are taking interest only now. The Guardian last week visited a road show of sorts in London (note that the properties were being hawked BEFORE the Greek parliament had approved the sale). The potential bidders were very cool:

Links 7/2/11