Yves here, as John Helmer explains in this post, one of the many focuses of economic warfare between the US and Russia is production of iron ore, in which Russia is a large player. Helmer describes how Urkaine is pushing to produce iron ore at the minehead, which means in Africa. Not only would Russia suffer, but Australia and Brazil would take collateral damage.
Read more...Yves here. I’m not one to fan Ebola fears. In fact, I’m a bit loath to give it the prominence in Links that I am, given the small number of cases in the US and in the world ex the afflicted parts of Africa. While the mortality rate is high, it’s not all that infectious. You are still more at risk from dying by virtue of driving (if you drive) than you are of dying from Ebola or terrorism.
However, whether or not Ebola morphs into a more virulent version, concern about it is legitimate, if for no other reason than that the US healthcare system is neither willing nor able to cope well with flareups of deadly diseases.
Read more...I must confess that I have been extremely tardy in discussing a tremendously important book on the private equity industry, Eileen Appelbaum’s and Rosemary Batt’s Private Equity at Work.
In the meantime, the book is getting the attention it deserve via a glowing review by Bob Kuttner in the New York Review of Books, Why Work Is More and More Debased.
Read more...Yves here. I’m particularly gratified to have this fundraising post from diptherio, an active and well-respected member of the Naked Capitalism commentariat. Diptherio has only occasionally, and sketchily mentioned his background: that he was formerly in politics and gave it up to build a small school in Nepal, where he lives now.
That sort of impulse, to make a positive difference in the world around you, is what I believe has drawn many of you to this site.
Read more...The Institute for New Economic Thinking announces it is accepting applications for grants of up to $250,000.
Read more...As we said in our companion post today on the AIG bailout trial, former AIG CEO Hank Greenberg may have a case after all. Mind you, we are not fans of Greenberg. But far too much of what happened during the crisis has been swept under the rug, in the interest of preserving the officialdom-flattering story that the way the bailouts were handled was necessary, or at least reasonable, and any errors were good faith mistakes, resulting from the enormity of the deluge.
Needless to say, the picture that emerges from the Greenberg camp, as presented in the “Corrected Plaintiff’s Proposed Findings of Fact,” filed in Federal Court on August 22, is radically different. I strongly urge readers, particularly those with transaction experience, to read the document, attached at the end, in full. It makes a surprisingly credible and detailed case that AIG’s board was muscled into a rescue that was punitive, when that was neither necessary nor warranted. And the tactics used to corner the board were remarkably heavy-handed.
Read more...Hank Greenberg may have a case after all.
Read more...The Institute for New Economic Thinking announced a call for proposals for research grants of up to $250,000.
Read more...When I started this website, one goal was that it would have was an active comments section where savvy, engaged readers would debate the information presented in the and relates matters. I don’t know how it came abut, but the Naked Capitalism commentariat embodies that aspiration even more than I dared hope.
This community is more important than you might imagine
Read more...Thanks to your prompt and generous responses, we’ve met our first three targets: funding for more site improvements, particularly for the user experience; travel/conference expenses and coverage, and ex-post-facto payments to site writers like Lambert and Dave Dayen. And we are more than half way towards our goal of 1000 contributors for this fundraiser.
We are on our way to meeting our fourth target….
Read more...Bill Black gives one of his best recaps ever of the “too big to jail” syndrome on Bill Moyers. For readers who missed the story, Black gave critical testimony in a Federal prosecution of small fry mortgage fraudsters. He helped persuaded the jury that in fact no fraud took place because the banks were willing to underwrite any predatory, poorly underwritten loan in the runup to the crisis. Black savages the posture of the Department of Justice in this case and in general.
Read more...Yves here. For US readers, the posture of the IMF may not seem like a terribly important topic. But most countries in the world face decent prospects of being subject at some point to its tender ministrations. And even those that would seem to be exempt, like Germany, nevertheless also are subject to its impact through how IMF programs affect its export markets and Eurozone arrangements.
The IMF’s policies received a great deal of attention last year as its chief economist, Olivier Blanchard, effectively admitted that austerity did not work. The formulation was that in most cases, fiscal multipliers are greater than one. That means that cutting government deficits, in an effort to lower government debt, is ultimately counterproductive because the economy shrinks even more than the reduction in spending. The result is that the debt to GDP ratio actually gets worse. This outcome is no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention, since the neoliberal experiment has produced the same bad results when administered in Greece, Latvia, Ireland, and Portugal, to name a few.
But what did this rare bout of empiricism mean for the IMF? This post gives that question a hard look.
Read more...If nothing else, the legal slugfest over whether the US government did former AIG CEO Hank Greenberg a dirty by imposing tough terms on the failed insurer and giving the kid gloves treatment to the teetering-on-the-brink banks who were certain to be engulfed by an AIG collapse will be highly entertaining. Ben Bernanke, Hank Greenberg, and Timothy Geithner are all scheduled to go on the stand next week, to be grilled by America’s top trial lawyer, David Boies.
Read more...
