Yearly Archives: 2013
Going Platinum
lambert strether blogs at Corrente.
Last time I was in Bangkok, my hosts instructed me to go shopping for some clothes so I could learn to bargain, at a humongous multi-storied megamall complex they called the Platinum Center. So I got off the train in the steamy heat, map in hand, and set out for, yes, there it is on the map, “Platinum Center.” Now, Bangkok is huge, it makes LA look like a village, so I expected some melty, slow-footed wandering about. What I didn’t expect — although food carts eased the pain — was an hour of peering up at the signage of one über-luxury megamall after another, and not seeing the name that I sought. Did Platinum Center exist? Had it been renamed? Moved? Was the map wrong? Until, finally, I looked up at the sign of what turned out to be my destination, and struck my forehead as it hit me (I do that a lot in Bangkok) that the sign, which I had looked at twice, at least, read–
Read more...Devolution: Welcome to the World Where Things Don’t Work Well
When I took the introductory fine arts course in college (which actually was a tough course), one of the ideas that stuck with me was devolution.
Read more...Banksters’ Useful Idiots: Brockton Considers Dubious Eminent Domain Strategy, Tainting More Legitimate Uses
Somewhere, someone must be laughing.
Read more...Marcy Wheeler: Once Again, Jamie Dimon Gets Special Treatment
By Marcy Wheeler. Cross posted from emptywheel
Yesterday, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued two orders to JP Morgan Chase, one related to its London Fail Whale, the other related to failures in its Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering compliance.
Read more...More Whistleblower Leaks on Foreclosure Settlement Show Both Suppression of Evidence and Gross Incompetence
No wonder the Fed and the OCC snubbed a request by Darryl Issa and Elijah Cummings to review the foreclosure fraud settlement before it was finalized early last week. What had leaked out while the Potemkin borrower reviews were underway showed them to be a sham, as we detailed at length in an earlier post. But even so, what actually took place was even worse than hardened cynics had imagined.
Read more...Links 1/15/13
Aaron Swartz at Risk
These are, as I began, cumbersome ways to kill a man.
Simpler, direct, and much more neat is to see
that he is living somewhere in the middle
of the twentieth century, and leave him there. –Edwin Brock
Twenty-first century. As Matt Stoller shows, Aaron Swartz was killed by corruption. His destroyers were placeholders in a weak, vicious, and corrupt rentier state.
Read more...The Incredible Shrinking HBOS Fraud
Reviewing the press coverage of the HBOS fraud charges, and asking some questions.
Read more...Richard Alford: To Learn or Not to Learn, That is the Question
By Richard Alford, a former New York Fed economist. Since then, he has worked in the financial industry as a trading floor economist and strategist on both the sell side and the buy side.
The US has experienced numerous disasters both natural and man-made. Unfortunately, the authorities have not always availed themselves of the opportunity to learn from these episodes.
Read more...The Power Of Selling Out: Your Customers As Political Capital
And now for something completely different:
Read more...Aaron Swartz’s Politics
Aaron Swartz was my friend, and I will always miss him.
Read more...Links 1/14/13
Help Us Find a Super Duper Intern
NC is now officially looking for an intern! We just posted a notice at Columbia Journalism School, and the key part is below:
Read more...Joe Firestone: Austerian Obama Kisses Platinum Coin Bargaining Chip Goodbye, but the Coin May Rise Again
By Joe Firestone, Ph.D., Managing Director, CEO of the Knowledge Management Consortium International (KMCI), and Director of KMCI’s CKIM Certificate program. He has taught political science as the graduate and undergraduate level and blogs regularly at Corrente, Firedoglake and Daily Kos as letsgetitdone
Yesterday, Ezra Klein mouthpieced for Treasury and Fed reported in the Washington Post that:
The Treasury Department will not mint a trillion-dollar platinum coin to get around the debt ceiling. If they did, the Federal Reserve would not accept it.
Needless to say, it’s not surprising that a reading of the underlying statutes suggests Obama was free to use the platinum coin to circumvent the debt ceiling, and conveniently scapegoats the Fed to hide his own preference for imposing austerity.
Read more...