China Goes Where Obamacare Refused to Tread: Takes on Big Pharma on High Priced Drugs
Emerging economies are increasingly flexing their muscles over stratospherically-priced life-saving drugs
Read more...Yearly Archives: 2012
Satyajit Das: The Spanish “Bailout”, Whoops – “Assistance”!
On 11 April 2011, then Spanish Finance Minister Elena Salgado stated: “I do not see any risk of contagion. We are totally out of this.” A little over a year later, Ms Salgado and her party are no longer in power and Spain is well and truly in it.
Read more...Links 6/10/12
Spanish Bank Rescue: Will the Treatment Make the Patient Worse?
Spain has reversed itself and asked the Eurozone for “up to” €100 billion after not long ago insisting it could go it alone. The proximate cost was the increase in its sovereign debt yields in the wake of the announcement of a bailout of Bankia, which was cobbled together from dud cajas. Even though Spain’s bond auction last week got off better than expected, that was likely in part due to the expectation that the creditor states would indeed ride in to the rescue.
But will the latest, yet to be finalized remedy do anything more than buy a little time?
Read more...Links 6/9/12
Objective of US and Israeli Policy is Economic Warfare Against Iran
Right after 9/11, Iran went out of its way to be helpful to the US, to the point where Stratfor regularly wrote about “the coming US-Iran alliance”. This interview with Gareth Porter discussed the current state of play in US relations with Iran, and discusses how the negotiations with Iran over its enrichment program look increasingly like cover for a an economic program designed to weaken Iran.
Read more...Whatever Happened to Natchez? How to End the Nightmare of Jobless America
Yves here. It is frustrating to watch the refusal of the officialdom to deal with a persistent, high level of unemployment. Ronald Reagan was more concerned and more aggressive when unemployment breached 8%. By contrast, pundits provide excuses for the Administration’s passivity by blaming joblessness on structural unemployment, when various studies have debunked that (one simple proof: if unemployment were structural, you’d expect to see tight job markets in some sectors/job types and slack in others, but when you cut the data, you find high unemployment across the board).
This article helps to puncture some of the misperceptions about unemployment in America and provides some practical ideas.
Read more...Alabama Appeals Court Reverses Decision on Chain of Title Case, Ruling Hinges on Question of Bogus Allonges
In a unanimous decision, the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals reversed a lower court decision on a foreclosure case, U.S. Bank v. Congress and remanded the case to trial court.
Read more...Mop-Up Operations Resume As Voters Reject Public Pensions, Worker Rights, Liberalism
By Matt Stoller, a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. You can follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/matthewstoller.
The big story on Tuesday was Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s win over unions and liberals, as voters ratified his attacks on public workers, the young, and women’s rights. But that vote was relatively close. Two other voter initiatives, in deep blue California, were not.
Read more...Steve Levitt: Like a True Chicago Boy, Likes People to Go to Jail so Markets Can Be Free
Yves here. Readers reacted positively to the inaugural report of the S.H.A.M.E Project on Malcolm Gladwell. S.H.A.M.E. , stands for “Shame the Hacks who Abuse Media Ethics.” Its approach is to provide information about the background and funding sources of well-recognized journalists and pundits so that the public will be in a better position to recognize bias and hidden agendas in their reporting and analysis.
This second report is on the widely-read economist Steve Levitt
Read more...Links 6/8/12
Yanis Varoufakis: Solidarity Euro-Style – Finnish Loans, ECB Bond Purchases, EFSF Tough Love and Assorted Horror Stories from the Postmodern Euro-Workhouse
The world seems convinced that Europe, perhaps under duress, put together a large Solidarity Fund (the EFSF) for the purposes of helping the fiscally-stricken Eurozone member-states avoid bankruptcy once they were frozen out of the money markets. The criticisms waged at this type of ‘solidarity’ centred on two issues: First, that the Fund’s size was not large enough (and thus unable to help Italy and Spain). Secondly, that this Fund resembles more a Victorian Workhouse whose real purpose was not to show solidarity to its residents but, rather, to make their life so unpleasant as to deter able-bodied workers from ever seeking its assistance.
Read more...Fitch Threatens Downgrade Waves Wet Noodle at US
Here we go again….
As the Obama administration is quietly working towards a “Grade Bargain”, which is the current branding for “let’s put the middle class on the austerity rack just when the economy looks depression prone”, rating agency Fitch does its part by lobbing in a “the US needs to get its fiscal house in order” message.
Read more...Marshall Auerback: Beware German Trojan Horses – More “Europe” Might Mean More Fiscal Austerity
By Marshall Auerback, a portfolio strategist and hedge fund manager
As several newspapers have recently highlighted, Germany is slowly but surely moving toward a plan to combine much of Europe’s bad debt into a single fund with the idea of paying it off over 25 years.
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