Here’s another New Zealand FSP scam, involving a “Malaysian billionaire”, who doesn’t look genuine, and princes from Kuwait and Abu Dhabi, who do look genuine!
Read more...The last piece in our series on Virgin Gold Mining Corporation, for the moment
Read more...This post dovetails with the Michael Pettis article today. Hot money is the bane of emerging markets, but the opposition to regulating capital flows remains fierce.
Read more...Yet more twists in the tale of the giant pyramid fraud, Virgin Gold Mining Corporation: Plan “C” starts to come unravelled.
Read more...We’ve said that Greece had a weak negotiating position in trying to get a better deal from its creditors. That is playing out before our eyes. Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has stepped down some of his early proposals even before formal talks have begun. This is a sad but predictable situation, since the Germans and the other members of the northern bloc are not at all willing to cut Greece much if any slack, since that would lead bigger, more powerful countries to try to slip the yoke of austerity.
The tragic thing about this situation is that Varoufakis is simply describing economic reality and has a number of sound ideas for how to make conditions better for Greece, which in the end will also lead to better results for its lenders.
Read more...More shenanigans from Virgin Gold Mining Corporation and its little helpers.
Read more...First in a series of posts exploring Virgin Gold, an immense ($2Bn?) pyramid scheme with a messy aftermath
Read more...Mario Seccareccia, professor of economics at the University of Ottawa, has been outspoken in his warnings that austerity policies have the potential to smash economies and spread untold human misery. He has challenged deficit hawks and emphasized the need for strong government investment in things like jobs, education, health care, and infrastructure if economies are to prosper. Here he talks about why what happened to Greece was entirely predictable, why the Greeks were right to reject austerity in the recent election, and what challenges the country faces in forging a sustainable path forward with the left-wing Syriza party at the helm.
Read more...Since it conflicts with Americans’ widely-held image of self-reliance, the fact that new business creation has fallen to the point that even Hungary has a higher rate of starting new ventures than the US hasn’t gotten the attention it warrants in the mainstream media.
Unfortunately, many of the explanations for why that happened are more than a bit off.
Read more...Yves here. Richard Smith is on the trail of what looks to be his biggest international scam find ever, orders of magnitude larger than the usual below the radar single to low double digit million dollar/pound/euro operation that he has ferreted out in the past. And mind you, even though he focuses on the dubious looking inter-corporate relationships and the often evident lack of normal investors protections and business substance, these companies sell hope and glamour to typically credulous retail investors who lose their money and have no recourse.
Read more...By Lambert Strether of Corrente. In last week’s State of the Union speech, Obama (again) pressed Congress to give him “fast track” negotiating authority (Trade Promotion Authority): I’m asking both parties to give me trade promotion authority to protect American workers, with strong new trade deals from Asia to Europe that aren’t just free, but […]
Read more...With a new Republican Congress, and Obama himself a Republican who occasionally wears Democratic clothing, the Administration is making noise that the TransPacific Partnership and its ugly sister, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, are moving forward in a serious way.
But the Administration tried that sort of messaging last year to keep up a sense of inevitability about these regulation-gutting, mislabeleed trade deals, when reality was very different. So where do things stand?
Read more...Stuffing people into cars they can’t afford and ultimately may not be able to pay for is big business.
Read more...As a virulent strain of austerity capitalism takes over Europe, leaving shattered lives in its shadow, researchers Servaas Storm and C.W.M. Naastepad, Senior Lecturers in Economics at Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands, consider how things got so bad, what role economists and misguided policy-makers have played, and which models and ideas are needed to change course. In the following interview, they discuss how most are getting the story about Europe wrong. They explain how their research shows that when countries try to compete with each other by lowering wages and slashing the social safety net, the costs are high both economically and socially, and why co-operative and regulated capitalism is a far better path.
Read more...Some readers are very enthusiastic about the idea of a basic income guarantee.
Be careful what you wish for.
Read more...