Reminder: NYC Meetup on April 25
We have a meetup set for April 25 but we need reader help with a venue.
Read more...Author Archives: Yves Smith
Cathy O’Neil: Let’s Stop Talking About HFT for a Little While
Why the brouhaha about HFT distracts attention from much bigger Wall Street abuses.
Read more...Links 4/11/14
Wolf Richter: Biggest Credit Bubble in History Flashes Warning – ‘Seek Cover’
Wolf Richter and Gillian Tett worry about evidence of credit mania in the US.
Read more...Obamacare’s Surrealpolitik
Welcome to the world of surrealpolitik, where anything you assert to be true is true, notwithstanding the factual evidence.
Read more...Matt Stoller: How Uber Creates an Algorithmic Monopoly to Extract Rents
We are not setting the price. The market is setting the price. We have algorithms to determine what that market is.<
Read more...Edward Snowden Testimony at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
Snowden’s big messages were familiar: the lack of effective supervision of the US surveillance state, the scope and methods of surveillance, and the ability of citizens to protect themselves if they use strong enough encryption of their data and their communications. But it was striking to see, even in such a formal setting, how seriously European officials took his remarks.
Read more...Links 4/10/14
Wolf Richter: America’s Structural Unemployment Crisis in Two Charts
The enormous number of people who work only part-time for economic reasons is one the tragedies of the unemployment crisis in this country. And that started before the financial crisis.
Read more...All in the Family: Tunisia as a Case Study in State Capture, aka Kleptocracy
If kleptocracy is a disease, Tunisia is in Stage 4. Its ruling family that controlled an impressive swathe of the economy. But what is sobering about the Tunisian case study is that an overthrow of the government has done little to reverse the concentration of wealth and power. Is that because Tunisia was so far gone, or is this native to kleptocracy, that once it becomes established, it is difficult to extirpate?
Read more...Mirable Dictu! US Regulators Impose Tougher Rules on Bank Capital
It’s easy to be cynical about the state of bank regulations, since the regulators themselves have for the most part been badly captured by the industry. So it’s important to give them credit when they take a meaningful step in the right direction.
Read more...Heartbleed Bug a Catastrophic Hole in Web Security; Webusers Told to Change Passwords
I remember the days when people were worried about using the Internet for purchases because they weren’t convinced their credit card information would be transmitted securely. It now turns out that a version of Open SSL that has been in production for two years, and on which https and other services like instant messaging, e-mail, and other web applications use has a gaping security hole called the Heartbleed bug.
Read more...SEC Lawyer on Goldman CDO Case Describes How the Agency Wimped Out
Susan Beck at American Lawyer (hat tip Abigail Field) has managed to get an inside view of what was going on at the SEC when it launched its case against Goldman and a Goldman vice president, Fabrice Tourre, over a Goldman CDO called Abacus that went spectacularly bad. So was the SEC corrupt or merely incompetent?
Read more...How the West Looks to Carve Up the Ukraine
Michael Hudson gives an update on the West’s resource grab in the Ukraine
Read more...Reserve Currency: Is the Yuan Tearing Down the US Dollar?
40 central banks have invested in yuan. Should the US be worried?
Read more...