Glencore, Commodities Traders, and Systemic Risk
Mega commodities trader Glencore and its big peers are looking wobbly. How worried should you be?
Read more...Category Archives: Doomsday scenarios
Wolf Richter: This is When Bonds Go Kaboom!
It’s getting tougher out there for our QE and ZIRP-coddled corporate junk-bond heroes.
Read more...Debacle, Inc.: How Henry Kissinger Helped Create Our ‘Proliferated’ World
If all Henry Kissinger contributed to the Middle East were a regional arms race, petrodollar addiction, Iranian radicalization, and the Tehran-Riyadh conflict, it would be bad enough. His legacy, however, is far worse than that: he has to answer for his role in the rise of political Islam.
Read more...Gaius Publius: Will Senator Whitehouse Renew His Call for RICO Prosecution of Climate-Denying Companies like Exxon?
Did climate change denialists like Exxon coordinate their activities, as Big Tobacco did to foster doubt about smoking’s role in lung cancer? If so, what would it take for RICO prosecutions to occur?
Read more...Greece: No Lessons Learned
Greece, which has undertaken the most severe austerity, has experienced the deepest economic contraction. But the policy quackery continues.
Read more...Privatizing the Apocalypse: How Nuclear Weapons Companies Commandeer Your Tax Dollars
How the nuclear weapons industry keeps itself out of the public’s eye despite its huge costs and risks.
Read more...Gaius Publius: They Knew – Exxon’s Own Research Confirmed Fossil Fuels’ Role in Global Warming Decades Ago
Exxon knew as early as 1977 that earth’s climate was being seriously disrupted, and would continue to be disrupted, by carbon dioxide emissions. Yet in the 1980s they pivoted to financing an aggressive climate denial effort .
Read more...CalSTRS, Maryland Fund Private Equity Players Seeking Profits in the Refugee Crisis
Private-equity-backed providers undercut charities in providing refugee services. It’s not hard to imagine how the results are coming in.
Read more...Perry Mehrling: What Does Repo Do? And Can We Do Without It?
Repo is the system that failed during the financial crisis, leading the Fed to ride to banks’ rescue. Is repo any safer now?
Read more...Why Tax Havens Will Be at the Heart of the Next Financial Crisis
Examining an excellent in-depth investigation by Reuters into global financial stability issues, and the role of tax havens in this giant game of pain and plunder.
Read more...Conflict Over Water In Central Asia
Expect water wars to become more common and deadly.
Read more...Wolf Richter: Americans’ Economic Outlook Plunges
The latest poll of Americans’ economic outlook shows most expect things to get worse…and the survey was before the market rout started last Friday.
Read more...King Coal, Dethroned, and Its Aftermath
The history the coal industry is tragic and its collapse is its grim final act.
Read more...Louis Proyect: A Brief Response to Joe Firestone on IT/Grexit
Why believing that there must be an easy way for Greece to pull of a Grexit does not make it so.
Read more...Wine and Water Watch (WWW) Challenges Northern California’s Invasive Wine Empire
Northern California activists opposed to the land and water use practices of the wine industry are stepping up their efforts.
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