Why Does Neoliberalism Persist Even After the Global Crisis?
This post focuses on the role of neoliberal ideology in promoting a system of expropriating property and economic rights from ordinary people.
Read more...Category Archives: Politics
Neil Barofsky Meets with Occupy Wall Street
Neil Barofsky met with several Occupy Wall Street working groups Sunday for nearly two hours. Barofsky is relaxed, thoughtful, and direct a Q&A format.
One of his major themes was that the unwillingness to mete out meaningful punishments to miscreant banks means that the authorities are providing incentives to engage in criminal activity.
Read more...Stealth Target of Defense Spending Cuts: America’s Highly Effective Socialized Medicine Provider, the VA System, and Military Benefits Generally
One element of the coming budget pact that is not getting the attention it warrants is a covert effort to gut military benefits by privatizing them.
Read more...The Probability of Greek Exit, Revisited
Fears of an imminent Greek exit from the Eurozone have subsided, for now. This column attempts to measure the probability of a Greek exit, finding that the changing fortunes of Greek political parties, and the possibility of an early election, mean that the risk of a Greek exit may actually be quite high. It suggests that, despite investors’ efforts to measure political risk, a persistent sense of unease about the Eurozone’s future is set to continue into 2013 and that Eurozone financial assets will thus continue to embed significant risk premiums in the coming years.
Read more...Where is Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy on Big Bank Crimes and Obama?
Matt Stoller is a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. You can follow him at http://www.twitter.com/matthewstoller.
Last week’s big revelation on banking is that it is now official Department of Justice policy under Obama that big banks and their executives are above the law.
Read more...Your Humble Blogger Discusses the Fiscal Cliff with Bill Moyers and Bruce Bartlett
I had fun in this conversation with conservative Bruce Bartlett, even though he stole some of my best lines (like Obama not being a liberal). Bartlett is in exile from the Republican party for saying things like Keynesian deficits stimulate the economy (after doing research and finding he couldn’t debunk it based on data) and unions help promote higher wages.
Read more...Ian Fraser: HSBC’s $1.9 Billion Settlement Sets (Another) Dangerous Precedent
Yves here. One of the things that has too often gone missing in the many discussions of why massive scale money launderer HSBC was not prosecuted is the basis of the “doing that would be destabilizing” excuse. When a company is indicted (mind you, indicted, not convicted), pretty much all Federal and many (most?) state agencies are required to stop doing business with it, immediately. The effect of the loss of so much business, particularly for a large financial firm, is seen as a death knell.
Of course, that’s the point.
Read more...Mirabile Dictu! EU Gets Tough on Banker Pay, Proposes Strict Bonus Limits
Bankers are now hoist on their own austerity petard. The fact that ordinary citizen all across the Eurozone are seeing lower incomes, lower levels of social services, and can expect only more of the same seems to have led to a sudden outburst of resolve to make sure that bankers take the pain along with everyone else.
Read more...How Many People Will Die if We Raise the Medicare Age to 67?
By Matt Stoller, a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. You can follow him at http://www.twitter.com/matthewstoller.
In a 2009 speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, Alan Grayson said that the Republican health care plan consists of two steps. One, don’t get sick. Two, if you do get sick, die quickly. Raising the Medicare age to 67 is the same sort of plan for those who wind up uninsured, and we can take a stab now at how many they will be and how many will die.
Read more...Neil Barofsky: Too Big to Jail – Our Banking System’s Latest Disgrace
By Neil Barofsky, former Special Inspector General for the Troubled Assets Relief Program, currently a senior fellow at the NYU School of Law and the author of Bailout. Cross posted from The New Republic with author permission
You can be forgiven if you watched the Department of Justice’s announcement yesterday of a $1.92 billion settlement with HSBC with a sense of disappointment–and déjà vu.
Read more...Wolf Richter: Sweden’s Euro Hostility Hits A Record
As the Eurozone flails about to keep its chin above the debt crisis that is drowning periphery countries, and as the European Union struggles to duct-tape itself together with more “integration,” that is governance by unelected transnational eurocrats, Sweden is having second thoughts: never before has there been such hostility toward the euro.
Read more...Stephanie Kelton Explains Modern Monetary Theory to You
Stephanie Kelton and Lauren Lyster of RT discussed Modern Monetary Theory with Kelton parsing out the prescriptive from the descriptive elements.
Read more...Is Obama Getting Rid of the FHFA’s Ed DeMarco to Bail Out the Banks?
Believe it or not, sometimes I’m not cynical enough.
Read more...Obama and Boehner’s Grand Bargain: Gullible Democrats are Falling for the Ol’ “Good Cop, Bad Cop” Routine
By Michael Hoexter, a policy analyst and marketing consultant on green issues, climate change, clean and renewable energy, and energy efficiency.
What is happening now in American politics surrounding the political theater called “the fiscal cliff”, must be understood with the utmost clarity because, in part, the organizers of what James K. Galbraith aptly calls a “scam” are counting on confusion and rash action to complete their scheme. If we can understand what is going on with greater clarity, we may be able to highlight to more people the import of the events occurring and hopefully short-circuit the efforts of politicians to damage the social safety net and the economy more generally.
Read more...Bill Black: Why is the Failed Monti a “Technocrat” and the Successful Correa a “Left-Leaning Economist”?
By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives
The New York Times produces profiles of national leaders like Italy’s Mario Monti and Ecuador’s Rafael Correa. I invite readers to contrast the worshipful treatment accorded Monti with the Correa profile. The next time someone tells you the NYT is a “leftist” paper you can show them how far right it is on financial issues.
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