Social Security: What Would Happen If the Trust Funds Ran Out?
The answer to a widely-discussed Social Security scenario is not as tidy as has been assumed.
Read more...Category Archives: Doomsday scenarios
Why Debt Sustains Corruption in Greece and Vice Versa
This post makes important observations about how the elite levels of Greece engage in rent-seeking, aka corruption, and can continue those strategies even in the face of economic collapse, to the detriment to the rest of Greek society.
Read more...Gaius Publius: California Drought, the “Bigger Water Crisis” & the Consumer Economy
The California drought is exacerbating severe, structural problems with water use in the West.
Read more...Bank IT, Grexit, and Systemic Risk
Why bank IT is more of a mess than you possibly imagined, and why that matters.
Read more...Say It With Me: Lagarde Is NOT Threatening To Scuttle Bailout Deal
The endless march of misreporting on the IMF and Lagarde’s statements continues.
Read more...Please Catch Our Discussion of Greece on Harry Shearer’s Le Show Today
We had a good conversation with Harry Shearer on Greece. Hope you will listen in!
Read more...Quick Update on Greece, Germany, and the IMF
We’d posted earlier this week that odds favored a Grexit. With the Greek bridge loan deal having passed the key hurdle of securing passage in the German Parliament, and Lagarde making it clear that the IMF will support an eventual bailout deal with “restructured” loans (ie, no haircuts), the odds have shifted. It is now more probable that this pillage-of-Greece program stays on track near term, meaning the so-called “third bailout” gets completed.
Read more...ECB Expected to Continue to Strangle Banks, Not Provide More ELA Funding Today, Despite Greek Parliament Passing Austerity Legislation (Updated: ECB Does Not Provide All of Requested Funding, Attaches New Strings)
The ECB is in full sack-of-Carthage mode if it fails to increase the ELA today to give Greek banks some hope of survival and more important for the economy, of providing payment services to citizens, businesses (particularly importers) and tourists
Read more...Odds Favor a Greece Deal Failure and Defacto Grexit
The odds now favor the tentative deal struck over the weekend to “rescue” Greece, which many have correctly depicted as a brutal economic colonization of Greece by its lenders, coming unraveled.
Read more...Convert to the Drachma – Piece of Cake. Right…
Those who consider a Grexit, meaning reintroducing drachma, to be a sine qua non for Greece moving forward have no idea of what that entails.
Read more...Greeks Rebel Against Bailout, Risk Collapse
Greek unions and other groups are mobilizing against the punitive deal tentatively agreed with Greece’s creditors. But can they really stand in its way?
Read more...Tentative Deal Strips Greece of Sovereignty, Makes Debt Relief Dependent on Compliance
The tentative deal deal with Greece and its creditors is simply vicious.
Read more...“Greece Brought a Latte to a Gunfight”
How Greece, and in particular, Yanis Varoufakis, grossly misunderstood German interests and how that led Greece to destroy itself and further German rule.
Read more...Greece Has Made No Preparation for a Grexit
This is as bad as we’ve feared.
Read more...A Grexit Looks Almost Inescapable
Despite my generally dour outlook, I never thought we’d arrive at the insane juncture we are at now, that of a Grexit being all but baked in.
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