Author Archives: Yves Smith
10,000 Posts and Counting!
Money & Public Purpose: Government is Not a Household
This second entry in the Money & Public Purpose series features Stephanie Kelton and Randy Wray debunking widely held misperceptions on the relationship of governments to the economy (for instance, that running surpluses is a good idea).
Read more...Links 10/20/12
Why It is Essential That Criminal Bankers are Prosecuted
By Rowan Bosworth-Davies, a former head of investigations at regulator FIMBRA (Financial Intermediaries, Managers and Brokers Regulatory Association) and a former Scotland Yard Fraud Squad detective. Cross posted from Ian Fraser’s blog
“Go where you will, in business parts, or meet who you like of businessmen, it is – and has been for the last three years – the same story and the same lament. Dishonesty, untruth, and what may, in plain English, be termed mercantile swindling within the limits of the law, exists on all sides and on every quarter…”
No, this is not a comment from a contemporary website. It comes from an editorial published in Temple Bar – A London Magazine for Town and Country Readers in 1866. It was written at a time when England was experiencing a plethora of fraudulent offerings in railway shares, but the tenor of its complaint is as relevant today as it was then.
Read more...Bill Moyers: Plutocracy Rising
Bill Moyer’s latest show, with Matt Taibbi and and Chrystia Freeland, focuses on how the super rich have established a yawning chasm between themselves and ordinary Americans, both in financial and physical terms. One major focus is view the rich are where they are by virtue of their talents and efforts, not (say) by regulatory and tax arbitrage, and how they’ve convinced themselves and a large swathe of society of this myth.
Read more...NC Fundraiser Coming Soon!
It’s that time of year…. The NC annual fundraiser will be starting soon, meaning end of next week.
Readers contribute generously to this site in many ways, via sending links, antidotes, hanging out at our water cooler, um comments section, and last but not least, sending money.
Read more...Links 10/19/12
How Botched Derivatives Risk Taming Regulations are Again Going to Leave Taxpayers Holding the Bag
An important piece in the Financial Times by Manmohan Singh, a senior economist at the International Monetary Fund, describes persuasively how one of the central vehicles for reducing derivatives risk, that of having a central counterparty (CCP) and requiring dealers to trade with it rather than have a web of bi-lateral exposures, or rely on banks to act as clearers (making them too big to fail) has gone pear shaped. While the immediate reason for this outcome is the unwillingness of national banking regulators to cede powers to an international clearinghouse, Singh fingers an equally important cause: the reluctance to recognize that the underlying problem was and remains undercollateralized derivatives positions. His introduction to the mess:
Read more...Private Equity Collusion on Deals
By Nanea, a private equity insider
Last week, the New York Times reported on its successful effort to unseal evidence in a lawsuit alleging that the biggest private equity firms (so called “mega-buyout” shops) colluded to limit competition with one another during the Buyout Boom that preceded the financial crisis.
The story made me think about some of my own, non-business-related experiences with cooperative behavior among private equity rivals.
Read more...Some Smart Money is Already Exiting the Single Family Rental Landgrab
Reuters describes how one of the funds that was first to get on the “buy single family homes out of foreclosure and rent them” bandwagon has decided to exit.
Read more...EU Summiteers Feast While Eurozone Smolders
By Delusional Economics, who is determined to cleanse the daily flow of vested interests propaganda to produce a balanced counterpoint. Cross posted from MacroBusiness.
So it’s yet another two days where the leaders of the EU get together for a dinner (this time it’s tarte, fine eggs/mushrooms, braised veal on bed of fresh spinach followed by a chocolate trio) and attempt to thrash out greater economic integration.
Read more...Marcy Wheeler: Eric Holder Rewards the Teams that Gave Torturers and Mortgage Fraudsters Immunity
By Marcy Wheeler. Cross posted from emptywheel
As TPM’s Ryan Reilly noted yesterday, among the awards Attorney General Eric Holder gave out at yesterday’s Attorney General’s Award Ceremony was a Distinguished Service Award to John Durham’s investigative team that chose not to prosecute Jose Rodriguez or the torturers who killed their victims.
Read more...Public Briefing: Erskine Bowles Determined to Reduce Private Sector Income, Stifle US Economy
Michael Hoexter is a policy analyst and marketing consultant on green issues, climate change, clean and renewable energy, and energy efficiency. Originally published at New Economic Perspectives.
Bowles Would Have Us Repeat the Errors of the Euro-Zone
That Bowles is currently lionized in Washington policy circles is particularly striking given the slow-motion economic catastrophe occurring within the Euro-Zone. Bowles’s ignorance or willful disregard of macroeconomic accounting processes and insistence that the US government institute laws that reflect that ignorance, repeats the errors made by the Euro-Zone countries when they signed the Maastricht Treaty in 1992.
Read more...
