Category Archives: Free markets and their discontents

Greed, Revolution, and Governance

I’m generally very taken with Ian Welsh’s work, particularly two recent posts, A New Ideology and How to Create a Viable Ideology. He then continued with 44 Explicit Points on Creating a Better World. And I hate to say it, but the last piece was no where near as well thought out as the preceding pieces. What troubled me about his latest piece was its combination of confidence (as opposed to modesty and soliciting reactions and input) in combination with it having internal contractions and a lack of precision of language. But perhaps the biggest shortcoming was trying to finesse the question of governance.

Obama Blames Shutdown on Lobbyists, Bloggers, “Talking Heads” and “Professional Activists”

You cannot make this stuff up.

Obama gave his usual adult talking to the children, meaning American citizens, type of speech to mark the cease-fire in the budget battle so that the two sides can work out a peace accord. These speeches are unpleasant to read because the blarney is so thick it could be packaged and sold as an industrial lubricant. But underneath the greasy veneer is the message that the Important People in the Beltway, meaning Obama, Democrats, and “responsible Republicans” in Congress must dedicate themselves to the pursuit of prosperity…of the 1%.

How the Foreclosure Crisis Made the Rich Even Richer

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It’s a welcome departure to see Adam Davidson’s weekly column in the New York Times, which usually puts a happy face on how the 1% are winning the class war in America, have a guest writer look at the other side of the story.

Trade Deals Must Allow for Regulating Finance

Yves here. In serious policy discussions, the rules of engagement are to to take rationales offered by each side at face value. So as useful as this article is in setting forth some high level but well supported reasons why the provisions of the Trans Pacific Partnership that would weaken financial regulations are a bad idea, it also has the unfortunate side effective of reinforcing a false narrative about the TPP and its European cousin. These pacts are not about trade. Trade is already substantially liberalized. Weakening national regulation is their main objective.

Why the US Mortgage Market Will Remain Heavily Dependent on Government Support (Updated)

In Senate Banking Committee testimony today, Georgetown law professor Adam Levitin explains why the private label (non-government guaranteed) mortgage market is a textbook case of what Nobel prize winning economist George Akerloff called a “market for lemons”.

Robert Reich, Inequality’s Intellectual Fraudster

Now it may seem churlish to take on a prominent former government official making a star turn to publicize one of the most pressing social and political problems in America, namely, our ever widening levels of inequality. But in fact, Reich is not only selling the equivalent of patent medicine as the remedy but he’s even getting commissions from some of the snake-oil manufacturers.

Ilargi: From Tragedy To Travesty – Selling Off The Cradle Of Democracy

Is it merely a coincidence that the troika rode its Trojan horse into Athens again on the very day Angela Merkel went awfully close to an absolute majority in German elections? I’m sure it is. But it’s still very bad news for the Greeks, who now have their perhaps last chance to throw out the international financial system and decide their own fate, before most of their valuables have been sold off to foreign interests. Greece is where democracy started, and the way things are going, it may be where it will end as well.

Mathew D. Rose: Good News for Merkel is Not Necessarily Good News for Europe

The German word for election, Wahlen, comes from the word “choice”, and in this general election there wasn’t really one. And that’s too bad for the rest of Europe.

What the Orgy of “Lehman Five Years On” Stories Missed

One of the reasons I haven’t weighed in with the obligatory Lehman five year anniversary piece is that so many of them are variations on a limited range of themes. So it may be more instructive to discuss the stories that it would have been nice to see instead.

The G20 St. Petersburg Summit: Bubbles, Casinos, and Inactivity

By Sameer Dossani, an advocacy coordinator at ActionAid International, a development NGO dedicated to ending poverty. Cross posted from Triple Crisis

While much of the media coverage around the G20 leaders summit has been about the failure of international diplomacy in Syria, the formal agenda was around one issue: growth. But focusing on growth is a bit like treating strep throat with asprin. You may alleviate some of the symptoms, but you’re not treating the source of the problem.

Ilargi: No Vigilantes Or Vultures Need Apply

With media and technology becoming faster and more pervasive at a rapid clip, it shouldn’t perhaps be a big surprise to see the ease with which war-mongering news flashes come to dominate the story of the day. But maybe this should be received with an increasing dose of skepticism…

Thinking Like Coase, Not an Economist

I have often railed against the economic approach to social organisation problems which can be described as ‘assume first ask questions later’. There are too few good economists following more scientific methods of sound reasoning and the reliance on evidence in light of real world institutional structures.

The first approach is often called ‘thinking like an economist’.

Lynn Parramore: Seven Reasons to Fight Obama on Picking Out-of-Touch Crony Capitalist Larry Summers as Fed Chair

The Fed chairman is the most powerful official Obama will pick— directly affecting each and every wallet in America. As much as anything, this appointment will shape our country’s future.

Obama appears to want Summers, and so do the most powerful people on Wall Street. But he is not the people’s choic

Yanis Varoufakis: Was Chancellor Merkel right (about Greece)?

By Yanis Varoufakis, a professor of economics at the University of Athens. Cross posted from his blog

Is Chancellor Merkel right when she recently said: “Greece should not have been admitted into the euro area”?