The escalating debt crisis in Puerto Rico, where default or bankruptcy look to be likely outcomes, has gotten only cursory notice from the media. That’s quite an oversight when you look at the size and potential impact.
Read more...The public interest group Better Markets today filed suit against the Department of Justice and Eric Holder, alleging that the so-called $13 billion settlement that the Federal government entered into with the nation’s biggest bank was improper due to its secrecy and lack of third-party review.
Read more...One of the noteworthy elements of Davos, at least according to media accounts, was the cheery, self-congratulatory tone among the Davos Men, at least until the final day, when the emerging markets rout began. But one of the front they thought they’d gotten under control, Europe, may be about to enter a new phase of political stress.
Read more...Yves here. Chase Madar describes the curious phenomenon of how, on an economic and military basis, Israel should be regarded as a client state, yet operates as an equal partner and even tries to dictate US policy. America’s involvement in the Middle East is one of the big drivers of our ongoing military commitments (which increasingly look like overreach) and our ties to Israel help keep the US mired. This in turn has implications for domestic policy, since high levels of military spending compete with other uses, most notably, social programs.
Read more...“What we’re also discovering is that insurance is complicated to buy.” —Barack Obama
By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
ObamaCare defenders consistently point to the abolition of lifetime or annual caps on dollar costs as one of the main benefits of ObamaCare. (Never mind that the administration delayed complete implementation of limits on out-of-pocket costs until 2015.) However, via Michael Olenick, from ObamaCare Facts (“dispelling the myths”) we read this:
Read more...This was not a world-record revolving door stint, but the head-spinning was of the good sort for a change.
Read more...It’s been so long that America has had a regulator that is serious about regulating that it’s hard to remember how they operate.
Read more...Inequality is currently a prominent topic of debate in Western democracies. In democratic countries, we might expect rising inequality to be partially offset by an increase in political support for redistribution. A new paper argues that the relationship between democracy, redistribution, and inequality is more complicated than that.
Read more...When Lambert sent me the link to a New Republic article, “The Onion Has Become America’s Finest Marxist News Source,” I first assumed that TNR was engaging in a bit of humorous flattery, as in taking a page from The Onion’s own book in highlighting its success. But on further inspection, I could be wrong. Readers, please help!
Read more...As anticipated, citizens in the nations that the US has been pressuring to join the toxic TransPacific partnership are taking note of stiffening opposition here.
Read more...Yves here. With Argentina one of the emerging markets economies whose currency has taken a huge tumble, its aggressive pro-labor, redistribution-oriented policies have come under attack (as an aside, one has to note that Turkey, which was touted as a model emerging economy a few years back, is also fighting a currency downspiral). And a predictable by-product is that some of Argentina’s policies have been misrepresented. For instance, it’s widely accused of “living beyond its means”. Yet as this post shows, the government ran surpluses in eight of the past ten years.
Read more...If it walks like a duck, um, a pre-emptive bribe….
Read more...Yet another private equity tax swindle has come to light.
Read more...Yves here. This has been such a busy week that I’ve been remiss about commenting on how Dimon’s board rewarded him despite the London Whale fiasco and the revelation of pervasive regulatory abuses. Clearly, they thought he bought the bank’s way out of trouble on the cheap, disproving the wailing in the financial firm toadying media that the Morgan bank had been ill-treated by the Administration.
Read more...For those of us who grew up under totalitarian regimes, it is noteworthy that Europeans are resorting to a time-honoured tradition: telling jokes as a form of defiance.
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