As Drought Hits, Fracking Poses Threat to Water Supply
A new report describes how hydraulic fracturing is posing a growing risk to water supplies in several regions around the country.
Read more...Author Archives: Yves Smith
Links 2/6/14
Jealous The New Republic Takes Potshot at The Onion for Being….Marxist!
When Lambert sent me the link to a New Republic article, “The Onion Has Become America’s Finest Marxist News Source,” I first assumed that TNR was engaging in a bit of humorous flattery, as in taking a page from The Onion’s own book in highlighting its success. But on further inspection, I could be wrong. Readers, please help!
Read more...Over 1 in 6 Men in Prime Working Years Don’t Have a Job
A new Wall Street Journal story on how many men aged 25 to 54 can’t find work, fails to mention but nevertheless shellacks an embarrassing New York Fed paper released earlier this week.
Read more...US Sours on its Own Secretive Trade Shocker
As anticipated, citizens in the nations that the US has been pressuring to join the toxic TransPacific partnership are taking note of stiffening opposition here.
Read more...Philip Pilkington: Paul Krugman Pushes Factually Inaccurate Arguments About Argentina to Support Discredited Monetarist Ideas
Yves here. With Argentina one of the emerging markets economies whose currency has taken a huge tumble, its aggressive pro-labor, redistribution-oriented policies have come under attack (as an aside, one has to note that Turkey, which was touted as a model emerging economy a few years back, is also fighting a currency downspiral). And a predictable by-product is that some of Argentina’s policies have been misrepresented. For instance, it’s widely accused of “living beyond its means”. Yet as this post shows, the government ran surpluses in eight of the past ten years.
Read more...Links 2/5/14
Martin Wolf Sounds Cautionary Note on Rise of Robots
Martin Wolf, the highly regarded chief economics editor at the Financial Times, has roused himself to take up the topic of whether robots represent a threat to the economic and social order. He takes the case for concern seriously and lays out a set of potential dangers.
Read more...The Supreme Position of the U.S. Dollar in New Financial Innovations and Instruments
New financial innovations and instruments contributed to halting the declining trend of the dollar as a debt-financing currency and reversed the falling role of the dollar in the 2000s.
Read more...Danger of Global Recession After 30 Years of Neoliberal Counterrevolution
Heiner Flassbeck is one of the few economists to get into positions of influence despite being firmly opposed to the prevailing doctrine of neoliberalism. He’s also direct and articulate.
Read more...Gaius Publius: Obama Got $20 Million from Healthcare Industry in 2008. Was Killing Single Payer Part of the Deal?
If it walks like a duck, um, a pre-emptive bribe….
Read more...Links 2/4/13
Wall Street Journal Exposes Entirely New Private Equity Tax Scam
Yet another private equity tax swindle has come to light.
Read more...Bill Black: Jamie Dimon’s $10 Million Raise is a “Common Sense” Fraud Reward
Yves here. This has been such a busy week that I’ve been remiss about commenting on how Dimon’s board rewarded him despite the London Whale fiasco and the revelation of pervasive regulatory abuses. Clearly, they thought he bought the bank’s way out of trouble on the cheap, disproving the wailing in the financial firm toadying media that the Morgan bank had been ill-treated by the Administration.
Read more...Yanis Varoufakis: Germany’s Choice: Authoritarianism or Hegemony? (*)
For those of us who grew up under totalitarian regimes, it is noteworthy that Europeans are resorting to a time-honoured tradition: telling jokes as a form of defiance.
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