Yearly Archives: 2012

Philip Pilkington: The 19th Century Long Depression: How it Fostered Oligopolistic Capitalism and Serves as a Model for Austerity

By Philip Pilkington, a writer and journalist who is in the process of moving to London. You can follow him on Twitter at @pilkingtonphil

You can live in this illusion
You can choose to believe
You keep looking but you can’t find the woods
While you’re hiding in the trees

– Nine Inch Nails ‘Right Where it Belongs”

Many people that I meet who are vaguely interested in economics – usually people in academia outside of the economics departments or working in lower tier sectors of banking and finance – are enamoured with libertarianism and its economic doctrines. Meanwhile the Republican Vice Presidential nominee – an Ayn Rand obsessive – has channelled such ideas into a truly otherworldly budget proposal.

Libertarianism-lite has become the last refuge for the ideological conservative.

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“The Drugs Don’t Work”: How the Medical-Industrial Complex Systematically Suppresses Negative Studies

We’ve written a lot about the scientism of mainstream economics, both here and in ECONNED, and how these trappings have let the discipline continue to have a special seat at the policy table despite ample evidence of its failure. As bad as this is, it pales in comparison to the overt corruption of science at work in the drug arena. Although this issue comes to light from time to time, often in the context of litigation, the lay public is largely ignorant of how systematic and pervasive the efforts are to undermine good research practice in order to foist more, expensive, and sometimes dangerous drugs onto patients.

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On Combatting Trolls

Long-standing readers have noticed an increase in the amount of trolling in the comments section. It shouldn’t come as a surprise. As traditional broadcast media are becoming less important, both advertisers and PR firms are seeking to influence opinion and popular tastes through social media and blogs. Since I prefer to take a more hands-off approach to the comments section that other bloggers do, it puts me in a bit of a quandary. But the increase in orchestrated efforts to attack certain posts leaves me with no choice but to intervene more heavily.

The post last week from Project S.H.A.M.E. on Megan McArdle is an illustration.

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Wolf Richter: Catalonia Cries for Independence While the Spanish Military Threatens To “Crush” The “Vultures”

Yves here. Readers in Spain have dismissed the possibility of a Spanish breakup. But long-simmering regional frustrations combined with a rapidly deteriorating economy have the potential to produce paralyzing levels of civil disobedience.

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Simon Johnson, Peter Boone: The Doomsday Cycle Turns: Who’s Next?

By Simon Johnson, Peter Boone. Johnson is Professor of Entrepreneurship, Sloan School of Management, MIT and CEPR Research Fellow. Boone is Research Associate, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE. Originally published at VoxEU.

Industrialised countries today face serious risks – for their financial sectors, for their public finances, and for their growth prospects. This column explains how, through our financial systems, we have created enormous, complex financial structures that can inflict tragic consequences with failure and yet are inherently difficult to regulate and control. It explains how this has happened and why there are more and worse crises to come.

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Yes, Really, Truly, No Joke, That Schneiderman Mortgage Task Force is Gonna Get Someone….Soon!

I’m sure the banksters are quaking in their boots. Eric Schneiderman, the New York state attorney general whose joining a heretofore moribund mortgage fraud task force and withdrawing from opposition to the horrid mortgage settlement allowed the Administration to push the bank-friendy deal across the line, is now making noises that really, truly, he and his Federal best buddies are gonna nail some baddies really soon. From Reuters:

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