By Delusional Economics, who is horrified at the state of economic commentary in Australia and is determined to cleanse the daily flow of vested interests propaganda to produce a balanced counterpoint. Cross posted from MacroBusiness.
As reported on MB last week Moody’s slapped Italy with another downgrade noting the following factors:
Read more...Bill Moyers starts with the Libor scandal as a way to get Sheila Bair’s perspective on the failure to get meaningful bank reforms. It’s refreshing to see how direct she is in saying the fixes aren’t hard, the problem is lack of will. She also discusses the death of moderate Republicans, and “free for all markets”.
Read more...Matt Stoller is a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and a political analyst on Brand X with Russell Brand. You can follow him at http://www.twitter.com/matthewstoller.
Every election cycle, Americans are greeted with a bevy of condescending lectures from well-heeled political elites about the importance of voting. It’s your duty. People died for right to vote. And so forth. This year, a far more compelling message about democracy is coming from miners in Spain, who, beset by austerity measures imposed by both political parties, are shooting at riot police with homemade rockets and slingshots.
Read more...In a previous post, we looked briefly at NZ companies that have now, or have ever had, “Bancorp” in their name, uncovering a rich vein of seediness. Filter out the more-or-less legit-looking companies and the more-or-less dodgy ones that I wrote about then, and there’s more. There always seems to be more.
The New Zealand Companies Office is asleep on the job.
Read more...By Michael Crimmins, who has worked on risk management and Sarbanes Oxley compliance for major banks
JP Morgan’s jawdropping revelations in its Friday earnings call don’t seem to be attracting the attention they deserve. The market may have shrugged off the size of the losses and the corporate governance modifications plans, but the announcement opens the door wide for the next phase of this scandal. The biggest question is whether Jamie Dimon should keep his job.
Read more...In my last post on the attempts to clamp down on New Zealander Ian Taylor’s buccaneering (ahem) company registrations, which have facilitated arms-smuggling and massive moneylaundering, I wrote of his latest venture
Read more...Naturally, various official and unofficial sleuths will now be sniffing after this new firm and the “reputable Asian jurisdiction”…
One awaits the next grisly sightings of Taylor’s legacy, registered in “Asia”, or Delaware, or London, or wherever.
Real News Network presented a two part interview with Gar Alperovitz, professor of political economy at the University of Maryland, on why and where public provision of services might be preferable to private sector solutions. Alperovitz pointed out how the growth expectations for public companies are at odds with resource conservation and how their rampant short-termism stunts investment. Some economists have recently taken a systematic look at the latter problem.
Read more...Yves here. The post below does not quite nail the rather large topic it opens up, that of how financial markets differ from markets for goods and what the implications are for regulation (George Cooper’s The Origin of Financial Crises is very crisp on these topics) but I thought it would provide for conversational grist for NC readers.
Read more...We have a video double header, with both clips addressing the question of what action officials might take as a result of the escalating Libor scandal.
Read more...We’ve been mystified with the housing bull argument that things really are getting better. While real estate is always and ever local, and some markets may indeed be on the upswing, there are ample reasons to doubt the idea that an overall housing recovery is in. For instance, the recent FHFA inspector general report stated:
Read more...By Lynn Parramore, a contributing editor at Alternet. Cross posted from Alternet
If the ghost of Ayn Rand were to suddenly manifest in your local bookstore, the Dominatrix of Capitalism would certainly get a thrill thumbing through the pages of E.L. James’ blockbuster Fifty Shades of Grey.
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