Author Archives: Yves Smith

SEC Gives JP Morgan and Other Big Banks License to Manipulate Commodities

An SEC action that appears likely to do considerable harm to companies and individuals in the US and abroad appears to have gone completely unnoticed, save for an important piece in The New Republic by Linda Khan.

Links 1/6/12

New York Times Article Tells Big Lies on Impact of Fiscal Cliff Deal on Rich v. Ordinary Americans

If the media was licensed, the New York Times story, “After Fiscal Cliff Deal, Tax Code May Be the Most Progressive Since 1979,” would be grounds for disbarment. I flagged the piece as a Big Lie in comments yesterday, and figured that since anyone who was either old enough to have been paying taxes in the 1980s or had minimal Google skills could ascertain its claims were nonsense, that it would be debunked elsewhere. Instead, it was apparently tweeted actively by soi-disant liberals on Saturday.

Links 1/5/13

US Suit Forces Closure of Swiss Bank, or More Accurately, What Little Was Left of It

Now it is narrowly true that the filing of a criminal suit by US prosecutors did force the closure of a bank. But as one might suspect, there is vastly less here than meets the eye. And that isn’t simply because the institution in question was a Swiss bank I am pretty certain you never heard of.

Belated Christmas of Sorts Here at NC

This may sound quite bizarre, but this evening I went through the envelopes containing checks sent in the fundraiser and processed and deposited most right before midnight (the rest were processed after I got back and will go to the bank tomorrow).

So it was really gratifying to see checks from readers whose names in many cases I recognized, as well as read the kind notes and cards (and some sent animal pix). Thanks so much for your vote of confidence in our work!

Links 1/4/12

IMF Admits More Mistakes

By Delusional Economics, who is determined to cleanse the daily flow of vested interests propaganda to produce a balanced counterpoint. Cross posted from MacroBusiness.

I’ve commented numerous times over the the last 3 years that I considered the IMF’s position on Europe dangerously misguided as I felt it was based more on ideology than evidential analysis (see more here). The results have been so bad that the IMF is being forced to admit to the errors of its ways.

OCC Foreclosure Reviewer: “Independent” Reviews Were Controlled by Banks, Which Suppressed Any Findings of Harm to Foreclosed Homeowners

You simply must read this post if you care at all about the rule of law or can stand to see the gory mechanisms by which “regulation” has now become a fig leaf for criminal corporate conduct.

The Political Implications of America’s Oil & Gas Boom – James Kwak Interview

By James Stafford, editor of OilPrice. Cross posted from OilPrice

In the interview James talks about:

• The political implications of America’s oil & gas boom
• How the shale boom will impact climate change
• Why China may be forced to change its political system
• An easy way to solve the debt crisis
• Why we should expect a comeback from coal in the future
• Why we must invest in renewable energy
• Why cheap energy isn’t vital to economic growth
• How Obama’s second term will alter the energy landscape
• Why we need to focus on conservation
• Why we shouldn’t take note of the doom and gloom predictions

Latvia’s Economic Disaster as a Neoliberal Success Story: A Model for Europe and the US?

By Jeffrey Sommers and Michael Hudson. Michael Hudson was Professor of Economics and Director of Research at the Riga Graduate School of Law. He is a research professor of Economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City. His latest book is Finance Capitalism and Its Discontents. Jeffrey Sommers is visiting faculty at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga. He is an Associate Professor of Political Economy & Public Policy at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee. The authors have advised Latvian politicians and government officials up to the Prime Minister level. Both have published extensively in the Latvian press.

A generation ago the Chicago Boys and their financial supporters applauded General Pinochet’s anti-labor Chile as a success story, thanks mainly to its transformation of their Social Security into Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) that almost universally were looted by the employer grupos by the end of the 1970s.

Today’s most highly celebrated anti-labor success story is Latvia. Latvia is portrayed as the country where labor did not fight back, but simply emigrated politely and quietly. Can this really be a model for the United States or Europe’s remaining social democracies? Or is it simply a cruel experiment that cannot readily be emulated in larger countries un-traumatized by Soviet era memories of occupation?