Author Archives: Yves Smith

Russia Slips Out of Kherson Under Cover of Midterms

Russia says it is pulling out of Kherson city, much to the consternation of Russian Telegrammers. But Ukraine isn’t buying it. What gives?

Government Surveillance at 2022 U.N. Climate Conference

Gambling in Casablanca! Spying in Sharm el-Sheikh, at the COP27 conference! Who’d have thunk it?

U.S. to Announce Plan for Private Companies to Fund International Renewable Energy Transition

Yet more proof that the US is far more inteested in green energy profiteering than doing the hard work to reduce the pace of climate change.

Links 11/9/2022

Debunking the Petrodollar Myth: Pricing Oil in Dollars Is Just a Convention

The term petrodollar has come to have talismanic value. Time to instill some reality.

Limits to Growth: Inconvenient Truth of Our Times

Before the first UN environmental summit, The Limits to Growth showed Earth’s finite resources cannot support ever-growing human consumption.

Links 11/8/2022

Real Progressives Live with Michael Hudson: The Destiny of Civilization

Michael Hudson explains how financial capitalism won the struggle with industrial capitalism and gave rentiers the upper hand.

The Public Shouldn’t Pay for Drugs Twice

Taxpayers foot the bill for medical research, but drug companies profit. We need a new R&D model to stop this rentierism.

Collateral Damage From Higher Interest Rates

Why to be wary of Larry Summers selling another Volcker-type “kill the economy to save it” interest rate jihad.

Links 11/5/2022

A Brief History of the Mortgage, From Its Roots in Ancient Rome to the English ‘Dead Pledge’ and its Rebirth in America

The backstory of what is now arguably the most widely-used form of lending in principal terms, the mortgage.

Russian Oil Price Cap Will Not Apply To Resold Cargoes

The “collective West” is remarkably attached to sanctions that have hurt them more than Russia. The oil price cap is next in this pattern.