Martin Wolf, the Financial Times’ highly respected chief economics commentor, weighs in with a pretty pessimistic piece tonight. This makes for a companion to Peter Boone and Simon Johnson’s Doomsday cycle post from yesterday. Let us cut to the chase of Wolf’s argument: Now, after the implosion, we witness the extraordinary rescue efforts. So what […]
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Read more...We’ve followed the story of the slow but increasing and badly needed pushback against Monsanto’s predatory business practices, which force farmers to buy Monsanto seed annually, rather than re-use it. Worse, Monsanto seed has been genetically engineered so as to require the use of Monsanto herbicides and fertilizers. And with (until recently) the seeds patent […]
Read more...By Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns Yesterday, I indicated I would write a few thematic posts as a look back at some of the more important economic topics that this credit crisis has uncovered. Tying posts together in a theme definitely gives a better holistic view of a the themes than the posts do in […]
Read more...With Obama’s popularity ratings plunging, one would think an obvious step would be for the Administration to move forward with measures that have good PR value and carry little political and budget risk. Yet, as Marshall Auerback noted, the Obama Administration is increasingly all hat, no cattle, making lofty popular sounding promises and not following […]
Read more...This is a guest post by Edward Harrison. There has been quite a lot of to-do about President Obama’s fat cat remarks and his meeting with bankers exhorting them to lend (which some attended via conference call only, ouch). Let me tie these events in with a few other themes into a comprehensive picture of […]
Read more...This article originally appeared at Credit Writedowns. Note: Since this post was published, three more banks in Georgia have failed. Read details here. Recently, I have been writing a lot about regional banks and the capital problems they have been having. This is having a direct impact on lending capacity available to small and medium […]
Read more...By Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns. A reader at Naked Capitalism asked us to respond to a recent article from the Christian Science Monitor asking Does US need a second stimulus to create jobs? Marshall Auerback has already done some heavy lifting – and taken all of the heat in the comments. He says emphatically […]
Read more...By Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns The US Department of Agriculture highlights how the United States in the last decade, despite increased aggregate wealth, slid back significantly in terms of food insecurity as measure of poverty. With everyone now focused on the unemployment situation, it bears noting that even before the downturn in the economy […]
Read more...By George Washington of Washington’s Blog . Daniel Gross points out that part of the reason that the American stock markets are going up even though unemployment is rising and the real economy suffering is because multinational corporations headquartered in the U.S. are experiencing strong sales abroad: Here’s a puzzle: The stock markets are doing […]
Read more...It should come as no surprise that those at the top of the food chain get preferential treatment on all levels. But this still stinks to high heaven. Employees of the Goldman, the Fed, Citigroup, and other banks are getting H1N1 vaccine allotments out of proportion to what can be justified from a public health […]
Read more...The efforts to try to burnish the image of bankers have gone from being unconvincing to ridiculous. I am certain we will see Jon Stewart comment on the latest twist, of trying to claim that God wants banks (and therefore bankers) to make a lot of money. Since Calvinism is the de facto religion of […]
Read more...It was curious to see the immediate complacent stock market reaction to the FOMC remarks that the Fed is going to keep rates low for an extended period (although it did crumble right before the close of trading). Yes, the central bank will have a tricky balancing act when it has to mop up liquidity, […]
Read more...One week ago, I put up a post on the plight of a family that was at the end of its rope financially due to a lack of savings prior to the firing of the main income provider at the start of 2009. They had started using credit cards to pay for necessities, had paid […]
Read more...Submitted by Edward harrison of Credit Writedowns Yves covered this in an earlier post overnight. Here’s my take. This is probably my fourth post on the tangled web woven by securitization, which puts a considerable distance between home owners and mortgagees which own a mortgage. The issue is causing huge problems in bankruptcy and foreclosure […]
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