The Previous Sole Superpower: From the Opium Wars to the Origin of the Species
The Opium Wars illustrate the brutal effectiveness of Great Britain’s use of a particular notion of freedom as a means of conquest.
Read more...Category Archives: Free markets and their discontents
Asset Management and Financial Stability
The growth of the asset management industry has raised concerns about its potential impacts on financial stability. This column assesses the systemic risk created by fund managers’ incentive problems and a first-mover advantage for end investors. Fund flows and fund ownership affect asset prices, and fund managers’ behaviour can amplify risks. This lends support to the expansion and strengthening of industry oversight, both at the individual fund and market levels.
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...Perry Mehrling: Flash Crash Explained by HFT
The official report on the October 15, 2014 “Flash Crash” raises some questions which unfortunately it does not answer.
Read more...The History of European Macroeconomics and Exchange Rate Policy
This is a very readable and important account of how Europe came to embrace some of the key elements of its current monetary policy and exchange rate straitjacket.
Read more...IMF Throws a Spanner in Proposed Greece Deal, Says Debt Reduction May Not Be Enough
The IMF has dropped a big shoe before the Greek government has passed any of the legislation required as part of its pending bailout. But if this development leads to more wrangling, that means an even longer delay before Greek banks get any liquidity, which means continued strangulation of the Greek economy.
Read more...Wolf Richter: Microsoft Tallies the True Costs of the M&A Boom: Layoffs, Write-Offs, Shut-Downs, and Economic Decline
Microsoft illustrates the real-world fallout of letting corporate executives, either out of desperation or out of finding deal making more fun than the grind of making businesses perform better, follow the siren song of M&A mavens.
Read more...How Recessions Crush Certain Geographic Areas: Puerto Rico as a Case Study.
How US policy neglect helped created Puerto Rico’s lousy economy.
Read more...GREECE’D: We Voted ‘No’ to Slavery, but ‘Yes’ to Our Chains
Greek journalist Michael Nevradakis and US investigative journalist Greg Palast have a different take on the Greek ‘No’ vote against Europe’s cruel austerity demands.
Read more...De-Industrialisation, ‘New Speenhamland’ and Neo-Liberalism: Government Subsidies to Low Wage Employers
Efforts to reform social welfare programs in England operated on the assumption that lack of consistent work (as in periods of unemployment) and overly large families were the big drivers of poverty. But the majority of poor now are working poor, and as in the Speenhamland days, social welfare programs are helping to subsidize below-living-wage pay levels.Similar factors are in play for US employers like Wal-Mart and McDonalds.
Read more...Tsipras Accepts Most Creditor Terms as Merkel Insists on Referendum
Post-bailout expiration dynamics are likely to produce even worse outcomes for Greece than it had on offer from the creditors last month.
Read more...Affordable Housing Crisis Grows Across the Country as Apartment Rents Skyrocket
An update on where and how tenants are being squeezed by rising rents versus stagnant to low wage growth.
Read more...Groundhog Day for NZ FSPs: Bryan Cook of Asia Finance Corporation is a Crook, but Does NZ’s FMA Care?
Why is it Groundhog Day? Back in 2011, I wrote a seriously messy blog post about dodgy New Zealand FSPs (Financial Services Providers), their dodgy web sites and people and addresses, and the evidently nonexistent oversight of all of this by the NZ Ministry of Economic Development and the NZ Companies Office. To my surprise, […]
Read more...Obergefell v. Hodges, Identity, and Dignity
Does the logic of Obergefell apply to the dignity of labor?
Read more...Detroit: A Case Study of Oligarchs and Vigilantes Taking Over Public Safety in a Big City
In Detroit, safety is a privilege enjoyed by the white and wealthy.
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