Author Archives: Yves Smith

Vale David Hirst

Yves here. Steve Keen sent this note along with his post:

The journalist David Hirst was both one of the few to warn of the crisis, and someone who became a good friend. He died last week, as a long term consequence of internal injuries sustained about ten years ago in the USA, when he tried to stop a woman being bashed.

His spouse asked me to see if I could get the attached published on NC, which was one of his favourite sites.

If you know David’s writing, you’ll understand what a loss this is. And if you missed his prescient and incisive commentary before and during the crisis, I hope you’ll sample his work below and get a sense of what a talent he was. Either way, I trust you’ll join me in sending condolences to David’s widow and his family, as well as to Steve.

Links 6/15/13

What Are You Doing to Protect Yourself From NSA? #SafeData

I’m opening up the thread for readers to discuss what they have done or plan to do in the wake of the revelations about the extent of NSA surveillance.

Why You Should Stop Worrying About Central Bank Losses

Yves here. I guarantee this post will make some readers’ heads explode. It also explains why Germany would benefit from OMT.

Links 6/14/13

Is the Fed Going to Dial Down Its QE Taper Talk?

We’ve suggested that the Fed has drunken a bit too much of its own confidence Kool-Aid to be talking about tapering QE. The problem now, as we’ve stressed, is that the effect of QE may prove to be asymmetrical.

Snowden Shows South China Morning Post Details of NSA Hacking in China

If such a thing is possible, the intelligence community’s unhappiness with Edward Snowden has ratcheted up another notch. It was bad enough that he revealed yesterday that the NSA had been hacking targets in mainland China and Hong Kong.

Yes, Congress and the President are Responsible for the Surveillance State

By Dan Fejes. Cross posted from Pruning Shears

There is an emerging theme on the left that the true blame for our metastasized domestic spying programs lies with the American people. And it’s nonsense.

Links 6/13/13

Nikkei Falls 6.4%, Overseas Markets Escalate Hissy Fit Over Cut in World Bank Forecasts, Fed Taper Talk

The big shortcoming being exposed by the Fed’s talk of tapering QE isn’t just that it’s premature. The central bank could have had its cake and eaten it too by using the “T” word and then in case of overreaction, sending minions out to reassure investors that it didn’t mean it, really, they just had to say it to appease the hawks (not in that formula, mind you, the mere fact of running around and looking concerned about markets having a bit of a swoon is more important than content). It’s that any QE exit subjects the Fed to conflicting objectives and Mr. Market may have finally awoken to that fact.

Yanis Varoufakis: Occupying the Closure of Greek Public TV (Journalists at BBC, ABC, and CBC, Take Note). Updated

For those of us who grew up in the Greece of the neo-fascist colonels, nothing can stir up painful memories like a modern act of totalitarianism. When the television screen froze last night, an hour before midnight, as if some sinister power from beyond had pressed a hideous pause button, I was suddenly transported to the 60s and early 70s when a disruption in television or radio output was a sure sign that another coup d’ etat was in the offing. The only difference was that last night the screen just froze; with journalists still appearing tantalisingly close to finishing their sentence. At least the colonels had the good sense of pasting a picture of the Greek flag, accompanied by military tunes…

Sasha Breger: More Ways That Financiers Suck Wealth From Agricultural Providers (and Ultimately, You)

By Sasha Breger, a lecturer at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver and author of the recent book Derivatives and Development. Her research includes global finance, derivatives, social policy, food, and farming. Cross posted from Triple Crisis

In my last two posts (http://triplecrisis.com/a-great-sucking-sound-part-2/, http://triplecrisis.com/a-great-sucking-sound-part-1/), I addressed the roles of debt, farmland acquisition, and physical commodity hoarding in helping finance siphon wealth from global agriculture. In this final post, I discuss the role of derivatives and insurance markets in this redistributive process.

Links 6/12/13