The Challenges of the Greek Crisis
An overview of how the Greek crisis is stressing international institutions as well as (sadly and predictably) Greece itself.
Read more...Author Archives: Yves Smith
More on the Systemic Risk of Bank IT Systems
Why financial firm IT is a bigger and more imminent source of systemic risk than you might think.
Read more...Links 7/31/15
The Ideology of the S&P Threat to Downgrade Brazil to Junk
Why you should look hard at the rationales and motives of ratings agencies like S&P in giving sovereign debt downgrades.
Read more...Paradise Burning: Why We All Need to Learn the World ‘Anthropogenic’
When fire can eat a rainforest in a relatively cool climate, you know the Earth is beginning to burn.
Read more...Gaius Publius: The Rorschach Candidacy of Hillary Clinton
What you can learn from applying the Hillary Clinton Rorschach test to friends and family!
Read more...Links 7/30/15
Lies, Damned Lies, and Greek Statistics
A detailed account of the long and tortured history of budget fakery in Greece and how it is has been aggressively defended by successive Greek governments. A tidbit from the post: one section is labeled “When revising wrong statistics is treason.”
Read more...Wolf Richter: Housing Bubble Means American Dream Withers at Record Pace
Despite the current housing “buying panic,” the soaring prices, and all the hoopla round them, there is a fly in the ointment: overall homeownership is plunging.
Read more...John Helmer: Tulip Sanctions – Russia Busts the Dutch Flower Trust, Almost
The Dutch flower market is a monopolist under assault. A case study of an economic and political struggle.
Read more...Mark Ames of Pando Interviews Your Humble Blogger on Greece
I hope you’ll enjoy this interview with Mark Ames: Naked Capitalism: “We are in the business of making trouble.”
Read more...How Big Corporations Are Starving Public Schools of Billions of Dollars
How big corporate tax avoidance hurts local schools.
Read more...Links 7/29/15
Private Equity Shills Resort to Ludicrous Arguments to Try to Deflect “Carry Fee” Reporting Scandal
The scandal over CalPERS’ failure to track “carry fees” has the industry worried enough that it is offering up ludicrous rationalizations.
Read more...The Balance of Power in the Middle East Just Changed, U.S.-Iranian Relations Emerge from a 30-Year Cold War
Don’t sweat the details of the US/Iran nuclear accord. What matters is that the calculus of power in the Middle East just changed, big time.
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