I’m going to tell one on myself in the of exposing an abuse in retail banking that is likely news to you. It certainly stunned everyone that has heard my little tale so far. I’m hoping that readers who know of or have had similar experiences will pipe up in comments.
Read more...Yves here. I’ve not weighed in on the second anniversary of the start of the Occupy Wall Street anniversary because, truth be told, the movement has gone so local and has so many different faces that I’m not certain it’s possible to make good generalizations without doing a lot of investigation.
This short interview seeks to address one of the expectations for OWS, that it become a political force, and why it was never met
Read more...Yves here. One of the things that makes it difficult to have intelligent conversations about politics is the way terminology has become debased, particularly in terms of what basic words like “left” and “progressive”. At least in the US, a good deal of this confusion results from the deliberate mislabeling of where political figures stand to exaggerate differences between the parties and camouflage the degree to which politicians serve big corporate interests rather than those of what is left of the middle class.
Jayati Ghosh discusses another axis that contributes to muddled categorization: that in emerging economies (and some of the patterns she describes are also present in left-leaning thought in advanced economies) is that old Socialist belief structures are being replaced by different lines of thought.
Read more...By Satyajit Das, a former banker and author of Extreme Money and Traders Guns & Money
Benn Steil (2013) The Battle Of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, And The Making of The New World Order; Princeton University Press
Neil Irwin (2012) The Alchemists: Inside The Secret World Of Central Bankers; Headline Publishing Group
Economist Brad DeLong observed in 2008: “It is either our curse or our blessing that we live in the Republic of the Central Banker”.
Read more...From Item 2(a) in the December 31, 2007 13G filing for SuccessFactors, Inc., on page 5:
Read more...While it’s a relief to have Larry Summers out of the running for the Fed chairmanship, it’s also important not to labor under any delusions about Janet Yellen, the nominee presumptive.
Read more...By Leith van Onselen, Chief Economist of Macro Investor, Australia’s independent investment newsletter covering trades, stocks, property and yield. You can follow him on Twitter at @leithvo. Cross posted from MacroBusiness
It’s all about the FOMC meeting at 04:00 AEST tomorrow morning and to be honest nothing else really matters. Ben Bernanke speaks 30 minutes later at 04:30 AEST and the chairman’s speech will also be highly watched, potentially increasing volatility across the board.
Read more...A new article up at the Wall Street Journal blares, “J.P. Morgan Still Faces Criminal Investigation for ‘Whale’ Trades.” This headline is narrowly accurate and shows some refreshing tough-mindedness among regulators in how they are negotiating with JP Morgan over its London Whale trades
Read more...By Wolf Richter, a San Francisco based executive, entrepreneur, start up specialist, and author, with extensive international work experience. Cross posted from Testosterone Pit.
IBM announced today that it would throw another billion at Linux, the open-source operating system, to run its Power System servers. The big reason? To capitalize on customers’ mistaken perception that Linux is safe from NSA snooping.
Read more...Yves here. At first I thought I’d relegate this Real News Network piece to Links, but on further reflection, I decided it was too important for that. The segment recaps the main findings of a new book, Enemies Within, about a heretofore secret operation in the NYPD. This might appear to be a local story, but think twice.
Read more...One of the aggravating facts of life in bureaucracies is having to contend regularly with misrepresentation. And I don’t mean faux friendly corporate bromides like “We’re here to help,” but weasely, technically accurate but substantively misleading statements. A Treasury reply to some questions from Elizabeth Warren is a classic in this genre.
Read more...For six years, we’ve discussed off and on how income inequality hurt the health of citizens, even in the top income strata. The US now ranks 27th in life expectancy among 34 advanced economies, down from 20 in 1990.
But in addition to the considerable health dangers of stress and weak social bonds, more obvious public health risks may be coming to the fore.
Read more...
