Contrary to conventional wisdom in economics, a bigger role for finance, also known as “financial deepening,” has gone well beyond the point of maximum return. It is promoting more crises rather than more growth.
Read more...Europe’s “recovery” looks more like a mirage than the real thing.
Read more...Anat Admati, deemed by Time as one of the 100 most influential people in the US, debunks the idea that the too-big-to-fail problem has been fixed. And she takes some swipes at Timothy Geithner.
Read more...Yves here. It’s been astonishing to see members of the Fed in denial about their own handiwork, so when St. Louis Fed President James Bullard berates his fellow central bankers for their abject refusal to notice pre-crisis bubbles, it’s an all too rare departure from their usual insularity and willful blindness.
Read more...Larry Summers, like Tim Geithner, wants the public to believe that rescuing banks and leaving citizens to rot was the right crisis response. But neither experts, nor people who followed the crisis, nor voters at large are buying what Team Obama is trying to sell.
Read more...Deflation proves that austerity policies are failing, but the media is doing a remarkable job of keeping readers confused and ignorant.
Read more...A good discussion of why the weak economic recovery has only helped those at the very top, and why economists who know better continue to enable that.
Read more...How the Fed has gotten itself caught in its own underwear by ignoring Hyman Minsky and in persisting in the clearly failed strategy of super lax monetary policy rather than calling for more government spending.
Read more...Why it is ludicrous to expect the unemployed to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
Read more...Despite the alarming results of the European elections last week, Angela Merkel remained unflinching. That is a cause for concern. European politicians believe the solution to voter ire is better messaging, as opposed to a change in policy.
Read more...Yves here. This post addresses an important but oft-neglected topic: that of the stealth subsidies to the rich and connected that take place via economic development projects.
Read more...Spain’s conservative government, eager to change the media’s emphasis on its repudiation in recent EU elections, has launched a media campaign stressing its adoption of an aggressive “stimulus” program. But once you get past the hype, this new program is the same old failed austerity snake oil.
Read more...The US press and newscasts make it appear that Europeans have voted against poor immigrants and foreigners. What they voted against was the super-rich, the oligarchy.
Read more...Over the last year, some deep truths about oil and the oil industry have begun to bubble to the surface. Not necessarily that they were ever hard to see, but they were easy to obscure and maybe more importantly, without too much effort, ignore. No longer.
Read more...Wall Street earnings are running on hype, momentum, and earnings expectations gamesmanship. Investors beware!
Read more...