Yearly Archives: 2013

Congressional Influence as a Determinant of Subprime Lending

A relatively unforeseen implosion in housing markets figured prominently in the 2007 meltdown in capital markets and the subsequent downturn in the global economy. This column presents new research on the political geography of subprime lending. Congressional leaders – as well as other recipients of campaign contributions – may have benefited from gains to trade in the direction, pricing, and sizing of subprime mortgage loans.

Links 5/7/13

Obama’s April 30 Presser on the ObamaCare “Train Wreck”

By lambert strether of Corrente.

Here’s another color-coded annotation of an Obama transcript (via Kaiser), this one from his news conference right after Senator Max Baucus warned that ObamaCare would be “a huge train wreck”. The contrast between Obama working from a prepared text (Inaugural, 2013; Hamilton Project, 2006) and Obama improvising at the podium is quite remarkable; we see no intricate verbal patterning at all.

Whereas the prepared texts are bright with color coding, Obama’s health care presser — and I know this will come as a shock to you — codes as equivocation (with one neoliberal code word, “market,” a little nonsense, and few lies). No secular religion or flights of populism whatever. Nevertheless, for all its banality and woodenness, the presser contains some remarkable passages.

Abigail Field: Is Schneiderman’s Plan to Sue Bank of America and Wells Over Mortgage Settlement Violations a Wet Noodle Lashing?

By Abigail Field, an attorney and writer

Eric Schneiderman gets buyers’ remorse. But can he do anything about it?

Finance and growth in China and India: Have Firms Benefited From the Capital-Market Expansion?

By Tatiana Didier, Research Economist, Office of the Chief Economist for Latin America and the Caribbean, World Bank, and Sergio Schmukler, Lead Economist at the World Bank. Originally published at VoxEU.

The growth of China and India’s financial sectors is hard to ignore. This column presents a new dataset on domestic and international capital raising activity and performance of the publicly listed firms in China and India. The data suggest that expanding capital markets might tend to directly benefit the largest firms – those able to reach some minimum threshold size for issuance. More widespread direct and indirect effects are more difficult to elucidate.

Our Misleading Measure of Income and Wealth Inequality: The Standard Gini Coefficient

Robert H. Wade is a Professor of Political Economy, London School of Economics and a winner of the Leontief Prize in Economics for 2008. His “Governing the Market” won Best Book in Political Economy from the American Political Science Association. Originally published at Triple Crisis. It is by now generally accepted that the sharp rise […]

Links 5/6/13

How Class Works – Richard Wolff Examines Class

By Richard D. Wolff, who is Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he taught economics from 1973 to 2008. He is currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University, New York City. He also teaches classes regularly at the Brecht Forum in Manhattan. From The Real News Network.

Comedian Reginald D Hunter (recommended by our own Richard Smith) tells the following one-liner: “A class system is what you use to discriminate against people who look like you.” True! Though Wolff has a more precise definition.* You can hear Wolff on this YouTube:

Pettis: Feedback Loops

By Michael Pettis. Cross posted from Michael Pettis’ China Financial Markets

Early this month Martin Wolf had another of his very interesting articles, this time on China, which I think suggests some of the concerns we must have about the upcoming adjustment. Wolf argues that it may be useful to think about Japan as a model for understanding the adjustment process in China since the Japanese model shows how risky it is to shift to a slow-growth model. I of course agree.

Obama’s Patronage System: Pritzker Nomination for Commerce Department, Limp-Wristed Dodd Frank

The consternation at the not-exactly-a-surprise nomination of billionaire Penny Pritzker to be Commerce Secretary, is sadly much less than is warranted. That suggests that the Forbes 400 member will survive her confirmation hearings. And in a telling bit of synchronicity, last week some fauxgressives set about amplifying an article in the Nation that big bank lobbying efforts were the reason Dodd Frank was amounting to very little. As we’ll discuss, both reflect how much Obama supports the interests of the FIRE sector (finance, insurance, and real estate).

Philip Pilkington: Homosexuality Leading Cause of Economic Crisis, Harvard’s Niall Ferguson Reports

By Philip Pilkington, a writer and research assistant at Kingston University in London. You can follow him on Twitter @pilkingtonphil

Over the weekend a leading member of the pro-austerity crowd came out with what is probably their most ludicrous argument yet.

Links 5/5/13

Forest Gardening, Edible Landscapes, and Urban Permaculture

Up here in Maine, Memorial Day is under four weeks away, so pretty soon the official planting season will begin! But last week the forsythia popped, so everybody is making ready; flats of pansies and petunias have appeared at the hardware store; and (cool weather; nights are in the forties) vegetables like kale and onions are at the farmer’s market. Last week I stopped wearing my winter parka. Spring is quite a relief from what all agree was an unusually long and bitterly stressful winter, even if (as has been the case for several years now) all the really bad weather passed by us in areas to the far South, like Boston.

So, herewith a video in three parts on really getting your hands dirty again and at last. All three parts are good, but I was especially interested in the third part, Urban Permaculture, because I find it hard to imagine, in Bangkok, say; or London, or Manhattan. So I’ll cover the first two parts only briefly, although it’s all worth watching when you aren’t outside.

The Layman’s Case Against Austerity

By Stephanie Kelton. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives

Steve Kraske of The Kansas City Star recently interviewed me for a piece about austerity. The story ran in today’s paper. It doesn’t provide much depth (unlike bloggers, journalists have strict space constraints!), so I followed up with a few comments on the Star’s website. I thought I’d share them here, since I’m always trying to improve the way I communicate these ideas with non-economists. So here’s my best effort to make the anti-austerity case in simple terms.

Links 5/4/13