Author Archives: Yves Smith
Wolf Richter: Implosion of Housing Bubble 2 Hits Six Cities in the West
Last time, all that craziness was called a “housing bubble” with hindsight. This time, it’s called a “housing recovery.”
Read more...Bill Black: Since When Does Refusing to Put Fraudulent Banks into Receivership Help the Economy?
Conservative economists love “creative destruction.” They can’t wait to “get their Schumpeter on” when a business fails and thousands of workers lose their jobs.
There is no more “creative destruction” conceivable than when we put a bank that has become a fraudulent enterprise into receivership, remove the controlling officers leading the fraud, and sell the bank through an FDIC-assisted acquisition
Read more...Philip Pilkington: Piketty’s Regressive Views on Public Debt and the Potential Impact of His Book
Piketty’s Wikipedia page says that he’s a Keynesian. Well, I don’t see it at all. His book contains a section on the public debt in historical perspective and it is desperately misinformed.
Read more...Links 4/30/14
NY Teachers’ Retirement Fund Exhibits Stockholm Syndrome, Rejects Reuters Private Equity FOIA Out of Fear of Annoying Private Equity Funds
It is hard to grasp how successful the private equity industry has been in brainwashing investors to keep information secret.
Read more...GSE Reform Dead for Now
I’m a little surprised at the overly coded reporting at the New York Times and particularly the Wall Street Journal, where Nick Timiraos provides top-notch coverage on the mortgage beat, on the implications of the failure of a widely-touted, Administration-backed GSE reform bill to get out of the Senate Banking Committee. Basically, it confirms what I’ve long believed but refrained from writing about, namely, that government sponsored enterprise, aka, GSE reform, was not going to get done in this session of Congress.
Read more...Mirable Dictu! Americans Diss Obama’s Ukraine Adventurism, Want US to Play More Modest Global Role
Wow, Obama is really losing it. He can’t even manage a good war scare any more.
Read more...Bill Black: GAO and Wall Street Journal Whitewash Huge Criminal Bank Frauds
Every day brings multiple new scandals. At least they used to be scandals. Now they’re simply news items strained of ethical content by business journalists who see no evil, hear no evil, and speak not about evil.
Read more...Links 4/29/14
Health Care Information Technology: A Danger to Physicians and to Your Health
The causes of the crapification are legion, but one that is having a bigger impact on health care than is widely recognized is bad information technology implementation. And I don’t mean the healthcare.gov website.
Read more...J.D. Alt: GROAF & CONTRAKSHUN
Why “groaf” is the new “growth” and Naked Capitalism readers are duly skeptical of it, along with its young cousin, “jawbs”.
Read more...Philip Pilkington: “The Chosen Ones” – Krugman’s Critique of the Critics
Pilkington examines Paul Krugman’s latest dig at heterodox economists.
Read more...Wolf Richter: LEAKED – Draghi’s Sudden Switcheroo On QE
While you weren’t paying attention, ECB chief Mario Draghi walked back his “QE is imminent” talk.
Read more...Did Japan’s Prime Minister Abe Serve Obama Beefsteak-Flavored Revenge for US Trade Representative Froman’s TPP Rudeness?
Yves here. I trust you’ll enjoy this long-form account of how President Obama put his foot in mouth and chewed in front of Japan’s Prime Minister Abe when he merely thought he was eating steak.
Read more...