By David Llewellyn-Smith, the founding publisher and former editor-in-chief of The Diplomat magazine, now the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics website. He is also the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut. Cross posted from MacroBusiness
The American academic Robert Shiller has taken another contrarian tack with his latest book Finance and the Good Society. His claim is that Western finance has lost the sense of virtue that it once had.
Read more...Yves here. Notice how someone in the officialdom actually said “There is no alternative”. Nothing like being explicit.
By Delusional Economics, who is horrified at the state of economic commentary in Australia and is determined to cleanse the daily flow of vested interests propaganda to produce a balanced counterpoint. Cross posted from MacroBusiness.
Overnight, Greek Leftist leader, Alexis Tsipras, gave up on his attempts, or at least pretence of them, to form government. The gauntlet has now been handed to PASOK leader, Evangelos Venizelos, who again has 3 days to attempt the same.
Read more...Yves here. Readers seem to like Kervick’s storytelling format, and he seemed to take NC readers’ suggestion to heart regarding making it a bit more compact next time.
By Dan Kervick, who does research in decision theory and analytic metaphysics. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives
Imagine a world and a society in which 500 people own everything – absolutely everything.
Read more...Now it gets interesting…we have a real rift in the EU, or at least the possibility of pushback against austerianism.
Read more...By Delusional Economics, who is horrified at the state of economic commentary in Australia and is determined to cleanse the daily flow of vested interests propaganda to produce a balanced counterpoint. Cross posted from MacroBusiness.
Last night the ECB met in Barcelona and once again held on rates. Mario Draghi opening statement is below. As I have spoken about many times previously I considers Mario Draghi’s statement about what is happening in Europe to be a view from some other planet.
Read more...By Philip Pilkington, a writer and journalist based in Dublin, Ireland. You can follow him on Twitter at @pilkingtonphil
Rumors abound that a deal is fomenting in Japan that might lead to the inflation targeting proposal that so many progressives champion on their blogs being put in place.
Read more...This is the sort of talk that makes Americans jealous of the British. Heterodox economist Ann Pettifor predicted a global debt deflation in 2003 (!) and critiques conventional thinking in the economics discipline. She also has a wonderfully theatrical manner of speaking.
Read more...Yves here. I rather like the storytelling format of this post.
By Dan Kervick, who does research in decision theory and analytic metaphysics. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives
In a small, peaceful town there once lived three people: Abbie, Baker and Carlie.
Read more...By Philip Pilkington, a writer and journalist based in Dublin, Ireland. You can follow him on Twitter at @pilkingtonphil
Fairytales and nursery rhymes are quite popular among the economists. Economists and economic commentators will couch magical thinking in rational sounding phrases — but that doesn’t stop it from being hokum.
Read more...By Satyajit Das, derivatives expert and the author of Extreme Money: The Masters of the Universe and the Cult of Risk Traders, Guns & Money: Knowns and Unknowns in the Dazzling World of Derivatives – Revised Edition (2006 and 2010). Jointly posted with Roubini Global Economics
The half-life of solutions to Europe’s debt problem is getting ever shorter.
Recent hopes have relied on the ostensible success of the European Central Bank’s (“ECB”) LTRO – Long Term Refinancing Operation, more appropriately termed the Lourdes Treatment and Resuscitation Option.
Read more...By Marshall Auerback, a hedge fund manager and portfolio strategist. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives
Spain has become the new Greece. Actually, in many respects Spain is now worse than Greece.
Read more...Lately, the US has been winning the investment beauty contest among Cinderella’s ugly sisters. Europe’s addiction to austerity, rolling rescues, and inability to address internal imbalances means at best a wild ride and at worst a crisis resurgence. China still has its perennial fans, but long-standing bears like Jim Chanos have been joined more recently by Marc Faber, who foresees 3% growth, which is tantamount to a recession. Japan is struggling with a mile high currency. The US, by comparison, does not look too bad.
Or does it? One of the lurking worries in the background is the so-called fiscal cliff.
Read more...By Pavlina Tcherneva, Assistant Professor of Economics at Franklin and Marshall College, Research Scholar at The Levy Economics Institute, and Senior Research Associate at the Center for Full Employment and Price Stability. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives
Our mainstream colleagues keep banging their heads against the wall. “Why, oh why wouldn’t Chairman Bernanke do more to rescue the economy?” Today Paul Krugman took on this question again, arguing that Chairman Bernanke should listen to Professor Bernanke who had far more sensible ideas about rescuing an economy from a deflationary environment, as seen in his research on Japan during the 90s.
Krugman revisits a 2000 paper by then professor Bernanke, which many of us have scrutinized before, titled “Japanese Monetary Policy: A Case of Self-Induced Paralysis?” Krugman faults Bernanke for not following his own advice…..
The difference is that, unlike Paul Krugman, I actually read Bernanke’s paper from start to finish.
Read more...By Delusional Economics, who is horrified at the state of economic commentary in Australia and is determined to cleanse the daily flow of vested interests propaganda to produce a balanced counterpoint. Cross posted from http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2012/04/spain-has-only-denial/“>MacroBusiness.
Overnight the president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, gave a speech to the Hearing at the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament. The speech was not particularly out of line with what Mr Draghi usually says…
Read more...By Daniel Alpert, the founding Managing Partner of Westwood Capital. Cross posted from EconoMonitor
This past Sunday, Paul Krugman penned a screed in the New York Times Magazine (entitled, somewhat unflatteringly in my opinion, “Earth to Ben Bernanke”) that expanded on the content of an ongoing debate in the economics blogosphere over the contents of the mind of Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke.
Professor Krugman has posited for months now that Bernanke has come up short…..
Read more...