Author Archives: Yves Smith
Yanis Varoufakis: The US Treasury is Right About Germany’s Eurozone Policies: Here is Why
By Yanis Varoufakis, professor of economics at the University of Athens. Cross posted from his blog
On 30th October, in its Report to Congress on Economic and Exchange Rate Policies, the US Treasury took a swipe at Germany, accusing it of exporting economic depression to the rest of Eurozone and, indeed, to the global economy. The German Finance Ministry responded the next day with a statement that: “There are no imbalances in Germany that need correction. On the contrary, the innovative German economy contributes significantly to global growth through exports and the import of components for finished products.” There are few occasions in any argument where one side is completely right and the other comprehensively wrong. This is one of them!
Read more...US Infrastructure Spending Plunges
I’m normally not big on “one chart says it all” posts, but this one is so striking I made an exception.
Read more...Greed, Revolution, and Governance
I’m generally very taken with Ian Welsh’s work, particularly two recent posts, A New Ideology and How to Create a Viable Ideology. He then continued with 44 Explicit Points on Creating a Better World. And I hate to say it, but the last piece was no where near as well thought out as the preceding pieces. What troubled me about his latest piece was its combination of confidence (as opposed to modesty and soliciting reactions and input) in combination with it having internal contractions and a lack of precision of language. But perhaps the biggest shortcoming was trying to finesse the question of governance.
Read more...Links Halloween 2013
Wolf Richter: NSA’s “MUSCULAR” Secretly Breaks Into The Cloud Of US Tech Companies, Siphons Off Data, Fouls Up Revenues Overseas
Yves here. Even though the NSA is now attempting to say that Google and Yahoo were told to comply with the latest data-hoovering exercise exposed by Edward Snowden, Google angrily claims otherwise.
Read more...Ilargi: Still Feel Confident About Collecting Your Pension After This?
By Raúl Ilargi Meijer, editor-in-chief of The Automatic Earth, Cross posted from Automatic Earth
If your answer to that question is affirmative, I suggest you take a good hard look at what’s coming out of Detroit these days.
Read more...Governments Need to Take the Reins Back From Central Banks and Deal with Economic Imbalances
Macrobusiness flagged a short interview with Ann Pettifor, a highly-regarded international finance expert who is the Director of Policy Research for Macroeconomics on the ABC program The Business. Pettifor argues that economists are responsible for the bias today to over-rely on monetary policy to solve problems that can only be addressed by government spending. Leaning too heavily on monetary policy to try to address weak growth simply generates asset bubbles.
Read more...Links 10/30/13
Ilargi: Energy Is A Power Game – 3 (They Cheat And They Lie)
Yves here. This post is important not just in and of itself but also as an example of the methods and costs of rent-seeking.
Read more...Michael Olenick: How My Experience with Healthcare.gov Shows “Better” Software May Not Be the Solution
By Michael Olenick, a regular contributor on Naked Capitalism. You can follow him on Twitter at @michael_olenick
This piece about my attempts to enroll on healthcare.gov runs the risk of being long, frustrating, and potentially repetitive, but that simply reflects the experience itself. But it also gives a taste of the nature of the problems and where the remedies might lie.
Read more...Markets Enter Blowoff
You know something is going wrong when the heads of the largest fund manager in the world and the largest bond management firm simultanously scream ”bubble”.
Read more...Links 10/29/13
We Discuss the JP Morgan “Settlement” on Democracy Now
I was glad to get the chance to discuss the misnamed JP Morgan settlement on Democracy Now yesterday. It’s misnamed because it’s not a single settlement, but a series of settlements, mainly if not entirely FHFA and state actions, bundled together, plus fines. Plus as you will see soon that’s far from the only way it’s been misreported!
Read more...Attention: Deficit Disorder and the Real Crisis Ahead
Yves here. This article focuses on the critically important of how the real danger to the economic welfare of young people is not the cost of retirement programs like Social Security and Medicare but the failure to generate enough jobs now and invest in infrastructure and education.
Read more...