Category Archives: Currencies

Will German Sovereign Debt “Bail In” Scheme Destroy the Eurozone?

Germany is keen on implementing a sovereign bail-in plan that is certain to precipitate a crisis, but more likely a banking crisis than a breakup.

Satyajit Das: Age of Stagnation or Something Worse?

In The Age of Stagnation, author Satyajit Das has shifted from his usual wry detachment to a sense of foreboding.

Should Argentina Now Pay the Ransom to Its Hostage-Takers?

Argentina’s vultures keep pressing for higher and higher settlement terms, while giving the impression that at some point they would settle. What is the end game?

Eurobanks: The Probable Point of Failure as Systemic Stress Rises

Why Eurobanks are the most likely fracture point if current economic stresses continue.

Why the Neoclassical Story About German Wage “Moderation” Causing the Eurozone Crisis is Wrong

Focusing on German wage “moderation,” as in restriction, leads to a neat, plausible, and wrong tale of what caused the Eurozone crisis.

Grexit Risk May Be Back Sooner Than You Think

Why Grexit is likely to be back on the table by summer.

Ilargi: Square Holes and Currency Pegs

The difficultly of maintaining currency pegs, most important the renminbi and riyal versus the dollar, will put even more stress on financial markets.

US Oil Futures Plunge by Nearly 7%, to $26.55 a Barrel; Stocks Swoon

Oil has ratcheted down again and stocks are getting hammered.

How the Labor Cost Competitiveness Myth is Making the Eurozone Crisis Worse

A new article makes a devastating attack on a fundamental belief driving Eurozone policy, that the member economies need to be made more “competitive,” meaning labor needs to be squeezed, for the currency union to achieve more growth.

China’s Contradictory Aims, Greater International Role Versus Domestic Economic Control, HIt Breaking Point

China appears to be in denial that it can’t have more open financial markets and maintain the same degree of control over the economy that it once enjoyed.

Identifying Vectors Influencing China’s (and International) Markets

A list of some of the factors driving the recent market upheaval in China. Readers will hopefully add to and refine this compilation.

Dollar Dominance: Deconstructing the Myths and Untangling the Web

It is not dollar hegemony that rules the world, but the global financial system which gives the dollar its place of privilege.

Louis Proyect: Greece as Rashomon

Like Akira Kurosawa’s “Rashomon”, the story of Syriza is also one about a rape told from different, self-serving and contradictory perspectives.

Randy Wray: Debt-Free Money and Banana Republics

Objections to the notion of debt-free money.

The Fed’s New “Operation Twist”: Twisted Logic for Bank Profits at the Expense of the Real Economy

How did Janet Yellen and the Federal Reserve justify their rate increase now, despite strong signs that there is little economic basis for doing so?

Call this an exercise in twisted logic, plain and simple.