Author Archives: Yves Smith
Tom Engelhardt: How Donald Trump Reveals the March of American Authoritarianism
Trump as a symbol of an America morphing into a visibly less democratic fading empire.
Read more...Financial Times Exposes McKinsey’s Secret, Conflict-Ridden In-House Hedge Fund
McKinsey’s heretofore secret in-house investment unit has troubling conflicts of interest.
Read more...Debate: Is “Degrowth” the Way to Reduce Greenhouse Gases?
A debate on sustainable growth versus degrowth.
Read more...Links 6/5/16
Gaius Publius: Comparing Debate Styles — Trump, Clinton, Sanders
Why a Trump-Clinton matchup is a Clinton train-wreck in the making, and why Sanders would do well against Trump.
Read more...Wolf Richter: What Makes This Jobs Report So Truly Ugly?
Last week’s job report was not only disconcerting in and of itself, but it also bodes ill for labor market prospects.
Read more...Links 6/4/16
Portland Is a Sustainable Utopia—How It Happened
How Portland is working to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 80% and reduce its environmental load on other fronts.
Read more...Steve Keen: Zombie-to-Be Economies and the Walking Dead of Debt Include China, South Korea, Canada, Finland
Steve Keen’s macroeconomic model allows him to identify zombies-in-the-making. It’s not pretty.
Read more...The Abandonment of Countercyclical Fiscal Policy
Economists bemoan the lack of aggressive fiscal spending after the crisis. Funny how few of them were willing to advocate it when it mattered.
Read more...Links 6/3/16
Gauis Publius: Three Data Points Regarding Clinton’s Email Server and the Law
Clearing up some of the confusion about the Clinton’s exposure in her e-mail server investigations.
Read more...Investment Case Study: Some Oxford Dons Take Skeptical Look at Yale and Canadian Investment Fads, Um, Models
Believe it or not, a case study on major approaches to investing that is both informative and fun to read.
Read more...Michael Pettis: China – How Much Investment is Optimal?
If China’s very low level of social capital has long ago made its investment strategy obsolete, that suggests that China has overinvested beyond its capacity to utilize these investments economically. Thus there are hidden losses on bank balance sheets created by the failure to write down physical capital to its true value. In this case Chinese growth cannot help but drop significantly as these losses are finally recognized and as investment levels are sharply curtailed.
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