Author Archives: Yves Smith
View from the Past: Banks Preferred Lending to Businesses, Not Collateral
Why the rise of collateral-based lending has been bad for our economic health.
Read more...“A Bad Man’s Guide to Private Equity and Pensions”
A bad man’s guide to how private equity ditches pensions in bankruptcy—legally.
Read more...Some Pointers on How to Catch the Dubious Use of Statistics
A long standing pet peeve is how the use of figures has been fetishized in political discourse and in our society generally, to the point where many people too easily swayed by argument that invoke data (I discussed this phenomenon at length in the business context in a 2006 article for the Conference Board Review, […]
Read more...Deal With Greece Still Looks Wobbly
Negotiations with Greece remain fraught. Only a narrow path has been opened to getting a deal done, and it is far too easy for the parties, for reasons good and bad, to stray from it.
Read more...Links 6/23/15
New Study Debunks Myth That Exorbitant CEO Pay Results from “Talent”
In the last month or so, I’ve seen some remarkably dubious studies flogged around what Lambert calls the Innertubes, all ringing changes on the same themes: outsized pay for those at the top is a reflection of a state of nature. Fortunately, a new study from Lawrence Mishel and Alyssa Davis of the Economic Policy Institute has done the heavy lifting of shredding new, creative defenses of out-of-control CEO pay.
Read more...15 Ways Bill Clinton’s White House Failed America and the World
How Bill Clinton hurt the American middle class and US interests abroad
Read more...Bill Black: A Harvard Don is Enraged that Pope Francis is “Opposed to the World Economic Order”
An economics professor rails against Pope Francis for daring to point out that we don’t live in the best of all possible worlds.
Read more...Short Greece Proposal Update: Greece Folds
More details on the Greece proposal to its creditors.
Read more...TPP: Will Voters Re-elect Laughing Stocks to the Senate?
Fast Track authority, whose passage is tantamount to passing the TPP, the TTIP, and TISA, goes back to the Senate. Please call your Senators ASAP, particularly Patty Murray (D-WA), Michael Bennet (D-CO), and Ron Wyden (D-OR) .
Read more...Links 6/22/15
The Revival of Cities and the Urban Land Premium
The popularity of certain cities is explained by their attractiveness for innovative enterprises and high-educated top talent. Is this a durable trend?
Read more...Tom Engelhardt: Armed Violence in the Homeland
If you worry about safety, stop fretting about terrorists and focus on the nasty intersection of rising social stress and widespread gun ownership.
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