The IMF says that Slovenia will need to issue €3 billion in bonds this year. The country may be forced to seek painful assistance from the Troika. Will Germany be the heavy as it was with Cyprus?
Read more...By John C.K. Daly, the chief analyst for Oilprice.com. Cross posted from OilPrice
As the practice of hydraulic fracturing to produce natural gas continues to spread not only in the U.S. but worldwide, the scientific community has increasingly focused on the environmental consequences of the technique. The most worrisome side effect of “fracking” is the rise of earthquakes in areas where the practice is extensive.
Read more...By Gaius Publius. Follow him on Twitter @Gaius_Publius. Cross posted from AmericaBlog
I’ve been writing about Obama’s Legacy Tour (sorry, his second term) from time to time without focusing on the legacy itself. So this post will lay down a marker — in brief, what’s on Obama’s economic legacy list, and what will he get if he succeeds?
Read more...By Ed Walker, who writes regularly for Firedoglake as masaccio
Suddenly it looks like we are seeing political victories for progressives, on LGBT rights, on issues important to Hispanics, even occasionally on issues important to women. At the same time, we lose every single battle over economic issues. Why?
Read more...Yves here. This post highlights an issue that gets far too little attention: how the “free trade” agenda has been used to promote a capital mobility agenda, and why that works to the detriment of ordinary citizens. It focuses on the real economy side of the free-flowing capital experiment; we’ll discuss next week how the Trans-Pacific Partnership is an alarming advance in this process of grinding down what is left of the middle class to benefit of the rich.
Read more...I was at the Atlantic Economy conference the week before last, and Michael Hudson got in one of the best quips: “Helicopter Ben has taken off and has been dropping money all over Wall Street. But he hasn’t dropped any on Main Street.” He has an informative talk with Paul Jay of Real News Network on why the fixation on public debt is wrongheaded, and we should worry about private debt instead.
Read more...One of the striking elements of the demonization of Cyprus was how it was depicted as a willing tool of Russian money launderers and oligarchs. But notice another implicit part of the story: that Russia’s oligarchs and “dirty money” are distinctive national creation. Do you ever hear Carlos Slim or Rupert Murdoch or the Koch Brothers described as oligarchs?
Read more...In March 2007, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke said that he thought the impact of losses on subprime mortgages was likely to be contained. It took five months for events to start proving him wrong. August 2007 marked the onset of the first acute phase of the global financial crisis, when the asset backed commercial paper market seized up.
Last week, in a press conference, Bernanke indicated that he thought the likelihood of the crisis in Cyprus having larger ramifications was limited, and avoided using the “c” word. But the message was similar to that of March 2007.
So are we likely to see the sort of delay between the assessment and the onset of trouble, as we did in 2007, or is Cyprus a nothingburger, as the Troika and many investors contend?
Read more...Cyprus is over as an international banking center, which the Financial Times reports was one of Berlin’s objectives for its rescue. However, the business press (and yours truly following them) has referred to Cyprus as a tax haven. That description is part of the PR campaign to justify punishing the island.
Read more...Not surprisingly, Sheila Bair was appalled by the revelations from Carl Levin’s hearings on the JP Morgan London Whale losses. She discusses not only what it says about the bank, but about the state of regulation in the US.
Read more...Bloomberg tweeted about 40 minutes ago that Cyprus had approved the legislation necessary for the EU bailout, but still does not have a news story up. The Wall Street Journal as of now has a “Breaking News” item on its website, again no story yet, “Cyprus lawmakers approve key bills aiming to secure broader bailout package.” So this looks to be a done deal.
Read more...By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Cross posed from New Economic Perspectives
Some lies will not die.
Read more...Mr. Market decided yesterday that the fact that the Cypriot finance minister, Michalis Sarris, was meeting as previously scheduled with Russian officials meant all would be well. And even better…Bernanke said the Cyprus banking mess would be contained. So why worry?
The ECB just announced that it will extend the ELA to Cyprus only through Monday. After that, it will cut off Cyprus if it has not knuckled under to an EU/IMF deal.
Read more...A quick run-down on the impressively stupid handling of the “Cyprus bailout” by the EU.
Read more...One of the big lessons of the fraught negotiations over bailing out (or more accurately, in) Cyprus’s banks is that deregulating institutions with an implicit or explicit state guarantee is a bad idea. You’ve just given them a license to gamble with the public’s money, and you can rest assured that they will eventually avail themselves of it. A bit more than a week ago, Jim Himes (an ex Goldman officer) and Randy Hultgren introduced bills that not only aim perpetuate this situation but will make it worse.
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