Author Archives: Yves Smith

Yet More Finance Profiteering: Green Bonds

Count on Wall Street to find a profit angle in actual or pending disaster. Green bonds are becoming a hot idea.

Orwell Goes to Iowa

In fairness, Orwell was far more skilled than the Iowa Democratic Party and DNC are showing themselves to be. This is just lame.

400 Million Locked Down in China To Fight Coronavirus

Another estimate of the severity and potential broader impact of the coronavirus.

Links 2/8/2020

This Philadelphia Refinery Is the Country’s Worst Benzene Polluter. Trump Wants To Keep It Open

Trump-aided behind-the-scenes shenanigans may keep a horrifically toxic refinery in business.

Twitter Is Blocking My Tweets (Updated: Back to Normal)

I appear to have been banned on Twitter.

Climate Change Needs To Be on the Balance Sheet

Serious people are finally calling for serious climate change accounting.

Hubert Horan: Can Uber Ever Deliver? Part Twenty-Two: Profits and Cash Flow Keep Deteriorating as Uber’s GAAP Losses Hit $8.5 Billion

Dissecting how Uber spun its 2019 financial reports. The actual results continue to be ugly, with no path to profit.

Sanders Called JPMorgan’s CEO America’s ‘Biggest Corporate Socialist’ – Here’s Why He Has a Point

As Sanders becomes a formidable 2020 contender, demonizing socialism is back in style.

Rentier Capitalism: Great for Stocks, Lousy for Growth

An oddly neglected paper gives an idea of how much rentier capitalism has distorted the US economy.

More (or Less) Economic Limits of the Blockchain

A discussion of blockchain “proof of stake” protocols.