Yves here. Because the European slow-motion train wreck is turning out to be particularly slow, it’s almost become background noise in the US, almost a lesser version of the now two lost decades in Japan. But what is happing in Europe is less benign and less likely to be able to continue anywhere near that long.
Read more...By lambert strether of Corrente
On Tuesday, Pravda informed us that the White House was “ramping up” its efforts to market ObamaCare, and that among those efforts would be “a Google hangout Wednesday to promote its enrollment Web site,” www.healthcare.gov [sic*]. Some of us also received a mail blast giving the event details, and inviting us to submit questions via twitter to #HCgovHangout. Needless to say, many of us noted the date and submitted questions, and when the time came, we were not disappointed…. I grabbed the live stream off Google[‘s proprietary site]; here it is:
Read more...Yves here. As has become typical of late, the markets reacted sharply to the release of the FOMC minutes on Wednesday and Bernanke’s remarks later. For a really good effort at parsing the minutes, see Fedwatcher Tim Duy. The one clear conclusion was how unclear the minutes were:
Read more...Obama has unfortunately been backed by a segment of the environmental and policy community that believes or wants desperately to believe that fracked natural gas is cleaner and otherwise preferable to coal. But it’s already too late for this and other “carbon gradualist” strategies to be viable.
Read more...Since Bernanke started talking about “tapering off” Quantitative Easing, the bond markets have freaked out. This is a very logical reaction once you understand how liquidity traps operate.
Read more...Yves here. I don’t mean to make an object lesson of the author of this piece, van Onselen, since the point he is making, about demographics as a driver of growth, is valid from the vantage point he is taking (that of investment time horizons, which by nature are comparatively short).
But this perspective is simultaneously frustrating to contend with.
Read more...We’ve been warning that the sudden rise in mortgage rates was going to create a great deal of buyer sticker shock. It’s already virtually halted refis. Further confirmation comes from the Urban Turf website:
Read more...Nothing like the prospect of someone with a high profile and a track record of going toe to toe with powerful interests and rich enough not to be beholden to party machinery to bring out all sorts of hacks and score-settlers.
Read more...The Guardian presented this video by Human Rights organisation Reprieve and Bafta award-winning director Asif Kapadia, US actor and rapper Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def), which is based on leaked military documents describing the standard operating procedures for these force-feedings.
Read more...In a new article at the Prospect, Harold Meyerson tells us that unions are getting higher marks than they did a few years ago:
Read more...I’m a bit late to get to an article in the New York Times that ran on one of the slowest news days of the year, last Saturday, Warren Mosler, a Deficit Lover With a Following. Since Bill Black has since issued a good kneecapping, I’ll soon turn the mike over to him, but I wanted to add some points about the approach used in this heavy-handed exercise propaganda.
Read more...The financial crisis was brutal for Germany, but the recovery was steep. A key element is the relentless drive to export. But the German “success recipe” looks to be losing its luster.
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