Corporate Welfare Queens – Shocking “Development Program” Failure Rate in North Carolina
Funny how there’s little hue and cry when corporate subsidies like development programs wind up throwing taxpayer money away.
Read more...Category Archives: Banana republic
Obama Administration Throws Greece Under the Bus; ECB Leak Recommends Capital Controls; Greece Weighing Capitulation (Updated: Germany Rejects Greek Proposal)
Things are not going well for Greece. It appears Syriza has largely capitulated to the demands of the Troika.
Read more...ECB Could Pressure Greece by Refusing to Increase ELA (Update: Small Increase Approved)
The ECB seems to be keeping Greece on a short leash by approving only a small increase in the ELA.
Read more...The “Vultures” are Still Circling Argentina
Argentina’s infamous “vulture funds”, as the holdout creditors represented by Paul Singer’s NML Capital are affectionately known, are back at their usual antics of trying to claw back from the Argentine government what they (and the US court system) see as rightfully theirs.
Read more...TransPacific Partnership: Fast Track to Financial Instability
In his State of the Union speech, President Obama said he would submit a bill to Congress that would grant him the fast track authority to finalize the TransPacific Partnership (TPP)—a trade pact with Pacific Rim countries such as Japan, Malaysia, Peru, and Chile. While free trade has brought benefits in the past, tariffs in the world economy are at an all time low and new deals like the TPP offer few new gains in terms of growth and jobs for the American people. And the TPP in particular comes at unacceptably high cost.
Read more...Tom Engelhardt: In Whose America? Machine Guns, MRAPs, Surveillance, Drones, Permanent War, and a Permanent Election Campaign
The occasion for such reflections: machine guns in my hometown. To be specific, several weeks ago, New York Police Commissioner William J. Bratton announced the formation of a new 350-officer Special Response Group (SRG). Keep in mind that New York City already has a police force of more than 34,000 — bigger, that is, than the active militaries of Austria, Bulgaria, Chad, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Kenya, Laos, Switzerland, or Zimbabwe — as well as its own “navy,” including six submersible drones. Just another drop in an ocean of blue, the SRG will nonetheless be a squad for our times, trained in what Bratton referred to as “advanced disorder control and counterterror.” It will also, he announced, be equipped with “extra heavy protective gear, with the long rifles and machine guns — unfortunately sometimes necessary in these instances.” And here’s where he created a little controversy in my hometown. The squad would, Bratton added, be “designed for dealing with events like our recent protests or incidents like Mumbai or what just happened in Paris.”
Read more...How Third Way Trade Agreements Study Distorts Via Omission to Pave Way for TTP and TTIP
Even cherry-picked data shows only modest gains for trade agreements, and more comprehensive looks tell a very different tale. And that’s before you get to all the nasty sovereignty-gutting provisions of the TTP and TTIP.
Read more...Greece, Its International Creditors and the Euro
his is an excellent background piece on how Greece got where it is and how its various bailouts were structured. It also helps explain the past and current roles the various members of the Troika play and discusses the prospects for Greece achieving its aims.
Read more...Varoufakis Charges Eurogroup with Bad Faith Dealing in Negotiations
Yanis Varoufakis describes how he was presented with one memo before the Eurogroup meeting and a very different one at the meeting proper. No wonder the Greek side got upset with how the meeting was conducted.
Read more...Michael Hudson: Ukraine Denouement – The Russian Loan and the IMF’s One-Two Punch
Will America’s insistence that Europe, Russia, and Ukraine act against their economic interest ultimately lead the US to lose Europe?
Read more...Ilargi: Ukraine – Trapped in Narrative
We’re offering two posts on Ukraine tonight, in part because Greece dominated our coverage last week, and each post covers a different aspect of this devolving situation. Ilargi focuses on the thin, as in WMD-in-Iraq-like, justifications for escalation
Read more...Michael Hudson: Has the IMF Annexed Ukraine?
Ukraine is going into an IMF program in even worse condition that Greece with its various loans from the Troika in 2010, and we can see how well borrowing more when you were already overindebted worked out for Greece. In addition, this interview with Michael Hudson makes clear that the loan to Ukraine is wildly out of line with IMF rules, making it painfully obvious that this “rescue” is all about propping up the government so it can continue to wage war rather than economic development.
Read more...Bill Black: Criminal Tax Evader HSBC’s CEO Resorts to Bank Apologist Fable of the Virgin Crisis
Bill Black shreds HSBC’s efforts to use the “I’m the CEO and I know nothing” defense for its helping clients cheat on taxes on a mass scale.
Read more...John Helmer: Poland’s Lobby for Ukraine Enjoyed Kolomoisky Bank Link (Updated)
Helmer’s deep dives into Ukraine’s corruption are a cross between Graham Greene underworldliness with a contemporary veneer of financial wheeling and dealing, plus lots of think tank laundered influence peddling. For those not up on the dramatis personae in Ukraine, Igor (also spelled Ihor) Kolomoisky is one of the wealthiest men in Ukraine.
Read more...Geithner: “The End of Capitalism as We Know It”
Bill Black flags yet another Geithner moment that deserves to live in infamy.
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