There is a very useful and accessible article at BBC (hat tip Richard Smith) on the information technology hairballs and baked-in level of future problems at major banks. The article was prompted by widespread problems at NatWest this week in accessing accounts.
Read more...It’s hard to fathom the celebratory mood in the US markets, save that the moneyed classes are benefitting from a wall of liquidity reminiscent of early 2007, when risk spreads across virtually all types of lending shrank to scarily low levels. Then the culprit was not well understood, although Gillian Tett discerned that CDOs were a huge source of leverage, and in April 2007, an analyst, Henry Maxey at Ruffler, LLC, did an impressive job of piecing together how levered structured credit strategies were driving market liquidity.
Now it’s a lot easier to see what is afoot.
Read more...Jonathan Harris of the Global Development and Environment Institute has a new post at Triple Crisis, Green Keynesianism: Beyond Standard Growth Paradigms, in which he argues that pro-growth policies need to find a way to deal with environmental/resource constraints. On the one hand, a lot of NC readers will find that argument to be welcome, if a bit overdue, since quite a few members have been arguing that growth-oriented economic policies need to acknowledge environmental constraints.
Having read Harris’ well-intended post, I’m increasingly convinced that environmentalists have it backwards.
Read more...Cross posted from OilPrice
This where we stand, and it’s a fairly bleak view: Peak oil is almost here, and nothing new (with the possible but unlikely exception of Iraq) is coming online anytime soon and while the clock is ticking – forward movement on developing renewable energy resources has been sadly inadequate. In the meantime, the idea that shale reservoirs will lead the US to energy independence will soon enough be recognized as unrealistic hype. There are no easy solutions, no viable quick fixes, and no magic fluids. Yet the future isn’t all doom and gloom – certain energy technologies do show promise.
Read more...Arjun Jayadev at Triple Crisis provides a quote from Thomas Phillipon that somehow never sees the light of day in the financial press:
Read more...…the unit cost of intermediation is higher today than it was a century ago, and it has increased over the past 30 years. One interpretation is that improvements in information technology may have been cancelled out by increases in other financial activities whose social value is difficult to assess.
By Marcy Wheeler. Cross posted from emptywheel
Yesterday, the HuffPo caught up to reporting I did in January, reporting that DOJ used Aaron Swartz’ 2008 Guerilla Open Access Manifesto to justify their investigation of him. But there’s something the HuffPo is still missing.
Read more...Yves here. This post is useful not simply for its discussion of the economics of green energy but also for showing how think tanks fabricate findings to support their political message.
Read more...If you think drones are bad enough, the military industrial complex is already working on the second generation.
Read more...This Real News Network video not only gives a disheartening recap on how various transparency freedom fighters are faring legally, but also provides a sense of how the security state is extending its reach.
Read more...Dystopian technology fantasies are flooding the media, to the delight of the 1 percent.
Read more...As much as I thoroughly enjoy shredding Adam Davidson’s Sunday columns in the New York Times, why should I have all the fun?
Read more...This Onion talk shows how much the state of what is cool (as in what investors will pay the most for) in technology has changed since the dot-com era.
Read more...Yves here. One of the sources of risk in big and even moderately big banks that does not get the attention it deserves is information systems
Read more...Matt Stoller is a fellow at the Roosevent institute. You can follow him at http://www.twitter.com/matthewstoller.
Throughout much of the United States, cell phone service is terrible, just like broadband and banking services. This is a result of a lack of competition and increasingly poor regulatory policies.
Read more...By William Lazonick, professor of economics and director of the UMass Center for Industrial Competitiveness. He cofounded and is president of the Academic-Industry Research Network. His book, “Sustainable Prosperity in the New Economy? Business Organization and High-Tech Employment in the United States” (Upjohn Institute, 2009) won the 2010 Schumpeter Prize. Cross posted from Alternet
Americans are understandably upset about profits without prosperity. Corporate executives seem to be the big winners, while the middle class is declining and young people face a bleak economic future. How did this happen? It's easy to blame technology, especially the automation that supposedly displaces workers. But that's not the real story. The fact is that automation creates jobs. It's the misuse of corporate profits that are destroying them.
Read more...