Author Archives: Yves Smith

Authoritative Consultant Slams Private Equity in Journal Article: Cheap Index Funds and In House Buys Beat PE Funds

Yet another authoritative source slams private equity returns.

Macroeconomics, Money (MMT Style) and Post-Brexit Recovery, All in One Twitter thread

Money, lending, government spending, QE….all explained in one tidy post!

Links 12/12/2020

Robert McChesney: The Decline of American Journalism

Why is US journalism in the crapper?

The Failure of the Public Health Establishment

Questioning whether the public health response to Covid is really about protecting the public.

Why Paying People To Get the Coronavirus Vaccine Won’t Work

More discussion of how to get the dogs to eat the vaccine dogfood.

Medical System Cracking: New Rochelle Nurses Strike Over Unsafe Staffing Levels; Washington State Warns of Potential for “Catastrophic Loss of Medical Care”

Medical systems are already under strain due to Covid and some nurses have had enough.

It’s Time to Break Up Britain

The Tories’ shambolic, self-serving rule has stoked interest in Britain breakaways by Scotland and even Wales and the North. But are they viable?

Polarized Pandemic Response and Covid-19 Connectedness Across US States

US data shows that strict responses reduce Covid outbreaks, and less stringent (Republican) states spread disease to each other.

Morag Maclean, R.I.P.

Morag was an exceptionally fine person, and I am deeply saddened to learn of her death.

DoorDash Delivery Workers Would Need to Toil for Two Days to Buy a Single Share of Their $60 Billion Company

A look at how DoorDash exploits its workers, and how they and some legislators are seeking to change that.

‘95% Effective’ May Not Mean What You Think It Means

A detailed discussion of the headline “95% effective” claim for the about-to-be-released Pfizer and Moderna Covid vaccines.

Jamie Galbraith: How Jason Furman and Lawrence Summers Reinforce a Destructive, Debunked Mainstream Paradigm to Support Deficit Spending

To defend deficits, Furman and Summers relied on debunked theories, thus preserving destructive mainstream economic ideas.

Brexit Chaos Was Entirely Predictable Because the World Works on Routine, and Brexit Breaks All the Routine Systems on Which Trade Has Relied

Brexit disruption has started even with a skimpy deal still theoretically possible.