Category Archives: Social policy

Rob Johnson on Real News Network on the Fed’s Lifeline to Eurobanks, and the Rationale for Austerity

Rob Johnson brings a wide ranging perspective (from politics, as a former Senate staffer; from markets, as a former hedge fund manager; and an economist, by training and via his current role as head of the Institute for New Economic Thinking) to this interview on the immediate and deeper implications of the central bank intervention on behalf of the Eurozone earlier this week. Johnson is deeply skeptical both of the near and longer-term approaches taken to rescue the Euro. This talk has a particularly clear and layperson friendly discussion of the rationale for and failings of austerity.

Journey into a Libertarian Future: Part III – Regulation

By Andrew Dittmer, who recently finished his PhD in mathematics at Harvard and is currently continuing work on his thesis topic. He also taught mathematics at a local elementary school. Andrew enjoys explaining the recent history of the financial sector to a popular audience.

Simulposted at The Distributist Review

This is the third installment of a six-part interview. For the previous parts, see Part 1 and Part 2. Red indicates exact quotes from Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s 2001 book “Democracy: The God That Failed.”

Philip Pilkington: The Coming Age of Neocla

By Philip Pilkington, a journalist and writer living in Dublin, Ireland

We stand for the withering away of the state. At the same time we stand for the strongest state power that has ever existed. Is this “contradictory”? Yes, it is contradictory. But this contradiction fully reflects Marx’s dialectics.

– Josef Stalin in remarks to the Soviet Party congress in 1930

Such is the contorted nonsense that flows from doctrine and dogma when these become institutionalised. When dogma is confined to the armchair of the intellectual or the blackboard of the social scientist it is innocuous – simply an attempt by one individual to make sense of a world that they will never, in truth, ever make sense of. But when it comes to occupy a seat of power it becomes like a steamroller that can crush common sense and practicality in a misled attempt to change the world for the better.

An Open Letter to the Winter Patriot

By Mitch Green, a Ph.D. student at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives

The following letter reflects my view on the subject of civil disobedience…I offer my opinion as an Army veteran, student of the economy, and critic of an ongoing effort to wage economic war on the vast majority the population. If these words move you, I urge you to consider honestly the consequences if you decide to act.

As the Occupy movement continues to grow in defiance of the heavy-handed police action determined to squelch it, a natural question emerges: What point will the military be summoned to contain the cascade of popular dissent? And if our nation’s finest are brought into this struggle to stand between the vested authority of the state and the ranks of those who petition them for a redress of grievance, what may we expect the outcome to be?

Matt Stoller: Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto Cracks Open the Financial Crisis

By Matt Stoller, the former Senior Policy Advisor to Rep. Alan Grayson and a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. You can reach him at stoller (at) gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @matthewstoller.

Learn the name Catherine Cortez Masto, because she just took a big leap in front of every public servant in the country in terms of restoring faith in government. As Nevada AG, she actually indicted someone for blowing up our housing system. Specifically, she handed down 606 counts of felony or gross misdemeanor indictments on robo-signing against two employees of big bank subcontractor Lender Processing Services.

It’s pretty clear from the indictment that these are mid-level employees, one level up supervisors of fraud rather than top CEOs. And yet, even if this were as far as it goes, it would still be a big deal. These would be the only charges served involving the housing crisis and its link with the structurally corrupt securitization chain so far. By itself, these indictments signify that the fraudulent foreclosure game is over for the big mortgage servicers in Nevada, which is the center of the foreclosure epidemic. It says the rule of law matters, in at least one corner of the country.