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By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City
My name is Bill Black, and I have dedicated my career to the study and prosecution of massive control frauds. As such, I have come into contact with many of the policymakers and thinkers criticized here on Naked Capitalism. And I can tell you that if you want to change the corroded thinking in the high halls of power, you should join those of us who have given to Naked Capitalism this year.
One of the testaments to the strength of this blog is that people who detest heterodox critiques of neo-liberal dogma feel they need to read Naked Capitalism in order to understand their opponents’ positions. Yves is an expert whose passion for trying to fix the things that are so profoundly screwed up in our financial system matches her hard work. Good blogs take an enormous amount of work and dedication to high standards.
I confess to being wonkish. If I’m awake and not playing soccer or cooking I’m very likely to be reading or writing in a variety of fields. Readers of Naked Capitalism are likely to have read enough of our (UMKC economics’ department) work to know that my colleague Stephanie Kelton has created a wonderful blog (New Economic Perspectives) that we write in regularly. The Playboy feature story on our department provided a fun boost to our recognition. But day-in and day-out we find reading Naked Capitalism to be essential to our ability to keep up with key developments in finance and policy.
We love it when our work is cross-posted on Naked Capitalism and our ideas reach a broader audience. I have been contacted by people like Neil Barofsky because they read my work here. These connections, fostered by this site, are vital for those of us dedicated to ending the power of the financial fraudsters. As readers of Naked Capitalism, you are both the beneficiaries of Yves’s work and vital contributors to the success of this blog. So, a big “shout out” from UMKC to everyone who makes Naked Capitalism an indispensable source of facts, bluntness (in a world plagued with euphemisms and excuses), and demands for higher standards and accountability in a field in which poor ethics and performance have increasingly gone hand-in-hand.
Please do what you can to maintain this blog as an important national resource. If you can afford a few dollars, you can give here. If you have a more than a few dollars, I guarantee you, it’s worth giving more.
22 comments
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OK, you convinced me.
Agree Bill.
NC has been a great way to stay on top of and ahead of things over the past few years. Lots of interesting links and sometimes a fun photo — great way to start my day!
I gave $250.
Come on folks, if I did it, you can too.
If you don’t have PayPal, mail a cheque or moneyorder to Aurora Advisors.
Or WePay!
Well, since Bill Black already has written on behalf of my UMKC economics department and its blog, all I can do is reiterate how grateful I am to Yves for providing this wonderful daily compendium. It is the single most valuable web site I know — especially as it usually picks what we write on our own NEP, as well as the best of other web sites, with her commentary.
By all means, please give her enough support to continue this good work.
I will next week when I get my entitlement check. I always learn something here
I would give except all my money is buried in the downpaymnet for the house I bought in early 2007. Help get that back and we will talk turkey
Bill Black is a god that walks the planet. I already gave and I urge others to do the same.
“Catch-22 says they can do anything we can’t stop them from doing.”
Professors Black, Hudson, et al. I wander over to NEP.org occasionally and always enjoy it. But usually I’m here on NC like a bookworm. And I’m grateful for all the posts I can absorb all in one place. UMKC is an unexpected phenomenon, with all of your expertise and clear communication. I would never have thought to go there to learn these insights because I think like a bigot – “Kansas City, right, those red necks.” Thank you tons for disillusioning me!
I wonder why economics sites like http://neweconomicperspectives.org/ or http://moslereconomics.com/ are missing from the blogroll of Naked Capitalism?
Re: New Economic Perspectives website – Bill Black himself has an excellent post up on the costs to “small business”, i.e., franchisees, of Obamacare as it now stands, with mandates for healthcare coverage necessarily falling on the backs of many small-medium businesses, which is a DIRECT CONSEQUENCE of maintaining healthcare provision with the private insurers. Once again, the logic of a single-payer system (universal Medicare) is inescapable for all but the ideologically- and profit-motive-driven defenders of an indefensible state of affairs – which, by the way, can and will worsen over time, due to the built-in incentives to overcharge, overprescribe, and overdiagnose per “fee-for-service”.
Applebee’s Obamacare Rant Reveals the Lies of the Deficit Hysteria
By William K. Black
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2012/11/applebees-obamacare-rant-reveals-the-lies-of-the-deficit-hysteria.html
The blogroll could indeed use a facelift. Part of the site work that is ongoing!
I can see that the VoxEU blog is already included in
the Blogroll here at Naked Capitalism.
Today, I came across the INET Blog, and a
piece by Andrew Haldane dated October 10 at the Inet Blog, that also appeared on VoxEU.
Perhaps the Inet Blog would be worthy of being considered for addition to the Blogroll.
Haldane’s article from October:
http://ineteconomics.org/blog/inet/andy-haldane-asks-what-have-economists-ever-done-us
INET stands for: “The Institute for New Economic
Thinking”.
The “home page” of the Inet Blog then seems to be:
http://ineteconomics.org/blog/inet .
A glance at the Haldane article criticizing the basics taught in econommics courses across the land reveals the stubborness of universities, their calousness towards student experience, and the power madness of their institutions. The student is required to not only accept this stuff, but also to produce his own work based on it. Its a brainwashing exercise.
Whenevr this subject comes up it reminds me of my first lessons in Catholic School as a 6 yo -the catechism. Question: Who made the world? Answer: God made the world. Teacher (subliminally): Well, now that that’s settled, let’s get on with it. ‘God said …
Your teacher knows; because your teacher is a representative of God. How do you know your teacher is a representative of God? Because if you are sane, and most of us are (at the age of 6), you know that you are not God. Proof: you didn’t know the answer to that first question.
There’s probably a good reason for not including INET in the blogroll. INET includes economists from every persuasion. Yves has been selective.
On NC I’ve been introduced to the best of them who speak truth to power. Michael Hudson was a special treat at the last INET conference. I watched and cheered for his opening remarks: a thump on the head to those economists who preceded him and needed it (so did I). I also attended his talk at Columbia University -thanks to NC for the heads-up, and later when the video was produced, NC linked to it.
I follow Bill Black on this blog. Also, Rob Johnson who was at that same INET conference as Michael Hudson who I was happy to see also thanks to NC at a downtown NY forum with Chris Hedges.
There are others. I consider those I’ve mentioned humanists. That’s what economics is about. Its about how human beings live and thrive; how they organize themselves around those imperatives.
neweconomicperspectives. An MMT Fiscal Responsibility Narrative: Some Truths After A Second Crowd Sourcing Revision by Devin Smith
.
More blogroll suggestions? Look here. And, as a bonus, if you miss J. Beard, you can find him in commments.
Donated a bit in solidarity with the man who introduced me to the term “control fraud.” Yves is a national treasure.
I’ll send $$ as soon as I get enough $$ to buy the outrageously priced Bill Black book (The best Way to Rob a Bank….) and start saving to send to NC.
THANK YOU for fighting! I am doing what I can too.
I just emptied my entire Paypal account in Yves direction, all $2.01 goes to aid in her upkeep.
In foreclosure, my wife and I left the house she designed (architect) and I (contractor) built. We’re in federal court pro se against the monster B of A that Yves has written about many a time. Tough go, but you have to stand up to this bullshit. Billion to one odds, but it has to be done.
These financial institutional cancers are like nothing ever before seen on this planet. They keep growing like the blob of sci-fi lore…they’re destroying the countryside like Rodan, leaving millions homeless while millions of homes lie abandoned by these same banks, who’ve stripped America naked. Societal parasites, and few anywhere else talk about it.
The bottom line is….what can be said of a society that parks millions upon millions of empty houses over here, while tossing millions upon millions of evicted citizens over there? Could any civilization be happy with that outcome? Isn’t that embarrassing at the least? Seriously inhumane at the worst? Who ordained this shit?
Thank you Yves, from the bottom of my heart. I love you dearly. When I can send more I will. Your primers on securitization and foreclosure fraud have aided me more than you’ll ever know.
Just donated via We Pay. I don’t know much about We Pay but it’s ownership *must* be better than Paypal’s.
Do you accept BitCoin. Just trying to figure out how that works.
Broke this week but bonus arrives in December, JIT for Xmas.
I’ll take the opportunity to thank Bill and Michael who along with their UKMC colleagues (and of course Yves, Max K, Ritholtz etc) have helped educate previously finance-free zones like myself over the last few years. Please don’t ever travel in a small plane together.
Re blogroll, I would add Steve Keen, Yanis Varoufakis, Automatic Earth and David Malone’s Golem Thoughts.