By Marshall Auerback, a portfolio strategist .hedge fund manager, and Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow My friend, Yves Smith, has posed the question as to why there is no political outlet for the anger on the left. In other words, where are today’s Huey Longs when you need them? It’s become patently obvious to anybody with […]
Read more...Poll ratings show approval levels for the major political perps, meaning the President, Congress, each of the two major parties, at levels so low as to be tantamount to loathing. But while the Tea Party has become a force to be reckoned with by tapping into this wellspring of discontent, those on the left who […]
Read more...Tom Adams pointed out a story on ABC about the sleazy strong arming tactics used by a debt collection agency engaged by Bank of America debt collection agency called ACT Technologies. I imagine we are going to hear more and more about this sort of thing, not simply because high unemployment rates mean more people […]
Read more...Three women filed a sex discrimination suit against Goldman seeking class action status. It has gotten some attention in the press and on the Web for not the best reasons, namely, the complaint recounts in some detail how one of the plaintiffs, Christina Chen-Oster a convertible bonds sales rep, had had a colleague force himself […]
Read more...The birth of modern propaganda took place in World War I, where an extraordinarily well orchestrated campaign turned America from pacifist to ferociously anti-German in a mere eighteen months. When after the war, the public learned that its beliefs had been turned without their realizing it, some of the key actors. such as Eddie Bernays […]
Read more...While this is a tad wide of our usual focus, the outcome of the November midterms has the potential to have significant economic implications. I ran into an old colleague, an investor and sufficiently serious Republican donor to have gotten invited to both Bush inaugurations. Surprisingly, he was not keen at all about the prospect […]
Read more...It is increasingly evident that the appointment of Elizabeth Warren to act as special advisor to the President and Treasury for the newly-established Consumer Financial Protection Agency has everything to do with Obama trying to shore up his questionable credentials as a reformer and perilous little with helping ordinary citizens. So the only question that […]
Read more...The London sponsored bike hire scheme provides an ongoing media opportunity for one of the UK’s less well liked banks. Not everyone thinks the PR should go unchallenged. Shot in Smithfield yesterday, hat tip Richard Smith:
Read more...I received this query from someone we will call AK via e-mail: Was wondering if you might be help with a mental exercise I’ve been toying with the last few weeks pertaining to the roll of timeframe of consequences, and whether we will be hit with a shock or slow-burn when gravity finally kicks in. […]
Read more...It may seem perverse to use a particularly strong piece by Martin Wolf of the Financial Times, who even on his rare less than stellar days is reasoned and readable, to illustrate a deep rooted problem even for critical thinkers in the mainstream media, namely, that certain ways of framing issues are simply off limits. […]
Read more...Morning all. A spot of short term cover for Yves, who will be back later today after a mini-epic, with the head of Medusa maybe. In Euroland, Ireland (on which more later if I have time), Portugal (whose banks turned out to need still more funding help from the ECB in August) and Greece (where […]
Read more...By Kalpa, who blogs at big picture agriculture. Kalpa’s formal education was in medicine, science, and the humanities. Having seen the destruction that industrial agriculture has done to the biosystem of the Midwestern Plains, where she grew up, she writes on the comprehensive picture of economics in agriculture, ag science, ag policy, food security, energy, […]
Read more...When analysts and commentators go through their laundry list of what ails the hopelessly overpriced US health care system, one of the most commonly cited reasons is the cost of “defensive medicine” meaning both the cost of medical malpractice policies to doctors, plus the costs of extra tests and procedures to provide doctors with cover […]
Read more...By William C. Black, Associate Professor of Economics and Law, University of Missouri-Kansas City, and the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One On February 6, 2010 I wrote an open letter to Dr. Walter E. Massey, who was then Chairman of the Board of Directors of Bank of […]
Read more...A question for readers: in many lines of commerce, large firms often enjoy significant cost and/or revenue advantages relative to smaller players. Over time, these industries tend to evolve to a format where many of the most successful enterprises are very large organizations. These firms typically wield considerable power relative to players smaller than they […]
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