Apologies for delayed links and lack of my own posts. Not only was the admin part of the site inaccessibile during my normal posting hours (which was pretty peculiar), but because I’m working on an antique Mac (will not bore you with story involving new machine and data recovery), a browser freeze meant I lost drafts of posts I was working on, including this one, which had to be reconstituted in large measure. In other words, I seem to be the Typhoid Mary of technology right now.
Aging Ills Reversed in Mice Wall Street Journal
Met Office says 2010 ‘among hottest on record’ BBC
Laura Hillenbrand releases new book while fighting chronic fatigue syndrome Washington Post
Irish bailout ‘stuns’ experts Guardian (hat tip Richard Smith)
Greece Is Almost Certainly “On Track” – But Towards Which Destination Is It Headed? Edward Hugh
The Eurozone Endgame: Four Scenarios Simon Johnson
Did Washington sabotage WikiLeaks? Website crashes after it suffers ‘denial of service attack’ Daily Mail (hat tip reader May S)
Thomas Friedman, the High Priest of Austerity Dean Baker
Deficit commission plan would kill 4 million jobs, analysis finds Raw Story
The Administration’s “Communication Problem” Mark Thoma
The road to endless war Paul Rogers OpenDemocracy
Trade for some from political stalemate John Dizard, Financial Times
Talk at Bennington College William Polk (hat tip reader May S). Very much worth reading, despite unrevealing title. For instance:
The Cold War changed the world for both America and Russia. We like to think that we “won” the Cold War, but the history of events since it ended shows that we both really lost it.
A Proposal for Money Market Fund Reform Economics of Contempt
The Fed and Foreclosures New York Times. While it’s nice of the Grey Lady to oppose this proposed move, the “most effective tool” designation is a bit of a stretch at this juncture. Didn’t someone figure out that three years ago is the beginning of December 2007 and the subprime market shut down in June 2007?
Boom in Debt Buying Fuels Another Boom—in Lawsuits Wall Street Journal. Contrast with this coverge.
Shortcuts on the foreclosure paper trail Sarasota Herald-Tribune (hat tip April Charney)
WSJ: The Tail Wags the Foreclosure Dog Adam Levitin, Credit Slips
Antidote du jour:
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Sorry this is slightly OT. I’m looking for an article I read recently by a former police officer (think it was linked from Naked Capitalism), where she criticised the TSA for its lack of standardized procedures. She speculated that she is more often targeted for extra scrutiny because she looks like she will respond cooperatively. She describes how she refused the scanner, and how the TSA employee charged with patting her down didn’t have a clue. In particular, she criticized the TSA employee for being too ginger about searching sensitive areas like her breasts and groin, and described the training police receive on this matter.
I’d be grateful for a link to that article. I am having trouble googling for it.
Found it. (And a sequel.)
“(will not bore you with story involving new machine and data recovery)”
your anecdotes are usually more interesting than the rest of the news…
It’s funny how Thomas Friedman is always the high priest of just what the rich would like him to be the high priest of at any time, whether it’s low taxes or invading other countries.
Remember, making the majority of Americans poorer doesn’t just mean lower taxes for the rich, it means cheaper workers for them too.
Cool pups! Dalmatians are my fave.
P.S.
Dear Santa,
I want the little grumpy one on the very bottom of the pile. Thanks!
I am still waiting for the first vegetable antitode du jour.
Yes, vegetables can be cute too.
I guess it’s all a matter of taste :).
I gotta hand it to you guys — Ed Harrison, Marshall Auerback, Yves Smith — and the other posters who pushed the notion that you can’t deleverage the public and private sectors and not juice exports somewhere like Mars or Andromeda, and expect economic growth.
YOu guys nailed it, really. I’m impressed. In hindsight it seems simple, but I racked my peanut-sized brain trying to figure out how an economy can grow sui generis, autonomously, simply by monetizing greater cooperation among dysfunctionally depressed poor people who rather drink alcohol and watch TV than do anything productive. And who can blame them, really. There but for the Grace of God go the world’s well-born. My theories got complicated, and I’m still working on them, but they are fringe and utopian.
In the meantime, youze guys got it right and I have learned a lot from reading your posts. To what good will this knowledge go? I’m not sure, but being in a state of doubt has it’s own peculiar energy. YT, Mr. Tremens, GED, Esquire, Lord of the Cote du Rhone and the Bicep Curls
Yves, thank you for linking to the story about Laura Hillenbrand. She is one of my heroes.
The thing that is puzzling about Ireland is this. If we are to believe Auerback and Co, the problem Ireland has is the Euro. If it were running its own currency, everything would be fine. There are two things that this makes no sense of.
One, they never explain whether what would be so good for Ireland would also be good for California or Illinois, and why not. That is, what is the rule which tells us when a region should have its own currency and when it should share one with another region?
The second thing is, it does not appear that the Irish problem is in any way caused by the Euro. It seems the Irish problem is caused by a decision which could have been made either in or out of the Euro, or in or out of a Sterling peg for that matter.
They decided as a country to assume the bad debts of their banks. They could have done that with the punt, or they could do that, or not do it, with the euro. But that is the source of the problems.
In exactly the same way, the Icelanders could assume or not assume the bad debts of their banks, whether they were in the Euro or not. The British also assumed the bad debts of their banks and may yet live to regret it, and they of course are not in the euro.
So what is the argument here exactly about running your own currency?
Hi Rogue,
I’ll play devil’s advocate for you.
“One, they never explain whether what would be so good for Ireland would also be good for California or Illinois, and why not. That is, what is the rule which tells us when a region should have its own currency and when it should share one with another region?”
California’s in trouble because the state government spending is exceeding tax revenue. I would guess the shortfall comes from unemployment and a shortage of property tax revenue. Ideally, California would have a buffer or receive temporary fiscal help from the Federal government. California hasn’t assumed any bank back-stopping responsibilities.
Ireland has implemented austerity measures and doesn’t have a significant government budget deficit aside from it’s banks guarantees (in the short term).
So the two region’s liabilities are reversed.
A lot of the value contained in Ireland has disappeared — the synthetic derivatives kind and the real kind, since half-developed land is worth less than either developed or untouched land. If they issued their own currency, this could be reflected in an exchange rate devaluation. A lower exchange rate means that in a non-crisis environment, their exports would pick up.
California, on the other hand, wouldn’t benefit much from a currency devaluation. California is already successfully “exporting” technology and entertainment to the rest of the country and the world. Currency devaluation might help the rest of the world afford California’s exports, but not significantly. But California’s disproportionately large contribution to the Federal tax haul gets distributed to other states directly via farm subsidies, or indirectly in the form of military spending.
That last part is what the EU is missing — constant government subsidies to Europe’s “midwest” and “south” (i.e., PIIGS). The EU has the monetary part. They need the fiscal part.
“The second thing is, it does not appear that the Irish problem is in any way caused by the Euro. It seems the Irish problem is caused by a decision which could have been made either in or out of the Euro, or in or out of a Sterling peg for that matter.”
They’re stuck between the rock of their “currency peg” to more productive countries, and the hard place of no EU-wide fiscal policy. One or the other will eventually have to give.
But really, what they need to do is wind down their banks, quit the EU, devalue, deficit-spend on infrastructure while waiting for the world economy to pick up again, then find something to export. Propping up their banks only helps the German and French banks who made wild investments.
As for future Irish exports, I say Irish wool and mutton, since both have a world-wide reputation and the government already subsidizes agriculture. When I toured an Irish farm, they said that France was by far their largest consumer of mutton. But, they said they actually pay to dispose of the wool, since a farmed sheep doesn’t have worthwhile wool. C’est la vie.
-Scott, who could have used an Irish wool coat this morning.
The nihiolist point of view:
http://trollblog.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/1443/
All economics is undead.
Thanks for this link.
Talk at Bennington College William Polk (hat tip reader May S). Very much worth reading, despite unrevealing title.
Very depressing. We’re doomed.
It is not depressing, you may be, but it is not depressing. Things are a lot better now than when I had a draft card. We are still alive, and did not have a nuclear war. Consider that a major achievement of humanity thus far. The disestablishment of the military, which is posted all over the world, is the greatest political priority of this generation. With N Korea and Iran defused, and that is something that will happen one way or another within a decade, we can stand down as a garrison state and re invest in an advanced technologically driven democratically controlled republic with a 3 day work week by the end of the century.
“One and a half million Americans soldiers have served in Iraq. ….. The real total of wounded is probably at least 500,000 of whom over half have severe brain damage –
concussions.” One third wounded, one sixth with severe brain damage? Most implausible.
The line item budget for the US Federal Govt for Veterans Affairs is broken out separately.
Cares for Wounded, Ill, and Injured
Servicemembers.
The 2011 Budget sustains
ongoing efforts to provide high quality medical
care to the over 9.5 million servicemembers
as well as military family and retiree beneficiaries.
This includes support for wounded warrior
transition units and centers of excellence in vision,
hearing, traumatic brain injury, and other
areas to continuously improve the care provided
to wounded, ill, and injured servicemembers, including:
• $30.9 billion overall for medical care,
an increase of 5.8 percent over the 2010
enacted
level.
• $669 million to provide care for traumatic
brain injury and psychological health.
• $250 million for continued support of
mental health and traumatic brain injury
research, such as the development of tools
to detect and treat post-traumatic stress,
and enhancements to suicide prevention
Plausible enough for you now?
“They decided as a country to assume the bad debts of their banks”: oh stop it. The government decided – no-one else. You can debate the pressures on them but they certainly didn’t come from the “country”. You can similarly debate why Obushma and Brown blewed taxpayers’ cash on the US and UK banks – but you can’t blame the “country” there either.
Quote “I seem to be the Typhoid Mary of technology right now”. Unquote.
It may not be entirely your fault. I have seen a lot of strange things happening to this site, which makes me think that somebody may be taking an active hand in causing problems. That is probably no surprise.
Ask a network/Internet expert to check it out.
All the best.
thanks 2 for the hillenbrand alert. she’s a hero of mine too. and a bangup good writer. this book is eagerly awaited by many i’m sure.
you should add this to Tuesday’s links:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-an-american-bribe-that-stinks-of-appeasement-2139101.html