Former Belgian Central Banker on Why the Money System is a Taboo Topic
Lively and provocative. Do yourself a favor and watch it. Hat tip Richard Smith via creditplumber.
Read more...Yearly Archives: 2012
The Grey Lady Voices Some Skepticism About IPO of Single Family Rental Player Silver Lake
This site refrains from talking about individual stocks, since we don’t give investment advice. However, a potential sea-change is underway, as a large portion of the inventory of foreclosed homes is being converted to rentals. Private equity firms are pursuing this opportunity eagerly, as the combination of low financing costs and tight rental markets in the US means that, at least on paper, investor believe they can earn attractive income, with potential for appreciation, either by eventually selling the houses to individuals or by taking the company public.
Given all the excitement over this conversion (it was voted the best opportunity over the next 12 months at a real estate conference I attended in the fall), it was interesting to detect a fair bit in the way of reservations in an article in the New York Times on the first IPO in this space, Silver Lake.
Read more...Yanis Varoufakis: Why Europe Needs More Leaders Like Bruno Kreisky, Who Navigated 1970s Upheaval and Stagflation Well
Yanis Varoufakis asked: Why has European social democracy abandoned the legacy of leaders like Bruno Kreisky, falling in line with a toxic economics and politics that thinkers like Kreisky would have dismissed in their sleep as pathetic claptrap? Here he takes a step back to explain why he views Kreisky’s chancellorship in Austria in the 1970s as a success in social and economic terms.
Read more...Links 12/8/12
Dan Kervick: Why MMT is Not a Free Lunch
By Dan Kervick, who does research in decision theory and analytic metaphysics. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives
A common criticism of Modern Monetary Theory is that it is a naïve doctrine of free lunches.
But this criticism misses the mark. MMT does focus a good deal of attention on the monetary system and the banking system, and on the operational mechanisms of public and private finance. But the whole point of analyzing and clarifying the monetary system is to help people see through the glare of the economy’s glittering monetary surface to the social and economic fundamentals that operate below that surface.
Read more...Barbara Roper Weighs in on the SEC Vacancy
Matt Stoller is a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. You can follow him at http://www.twitter.com/matthewstoller.
In the comments of my last post on the SEC nomination issue, director of investor protection for the Consumer Federation of America, Barbara Roper, laid out a rationale for different choices at the SEC. R
Read more...The BLS Jobs Report Covering November 2012: Hollow Gains
By Hugh, who is a long-time commenter at Naked Capitalism. Originally published at Corrente.
I suspect that the Bureau of Labor Statistics report covering November 2012 will be heralded as a solid report, but as usual there are a lot of negatives behind the headline numbers. Seasonally adjusted, 146,000 jobs were added to the economy and the unemployment rate dropped two-tenths of a percent to 7.7%. For those of you who are conspiratorially minded, after upward revisions in the months preceding the election, last month’s jobs number was cut by 33,000 and September’s 16,000.
Read more...New Econoparody: “Oil to the World”
Readers have enjoyed past productions by Versus. Here’s their latest holiday release:
Read more...Links 12/7/12
Fiscal Cliff Propaganda Watch: Business Owner Says the Fiscal Cliff Made Him Fire His Son
The lies told to sell the chump public on the necessity of enduring cuts to the social safety net are already at a breathtaking level. Where would you like to begin? The idea that big reductions in spending (going over the edge of the world off the fiscal cliff would be horrific, while only somewhat big cuts would be salutary? That Social Security “reforms” are necessary to fix the budget? Even former budget chief Peter Orszag ‘fessed up that one was not true. Or the favorite refuge of the Republicans, that raising taxes on the wealthy will hurt job creation. Ahem, we’ve pushed the low taxes model further than any other advanced economy, and the result is crumbling infrastructure, an overpriced and mediocre health care system, and record corporate profits combined with extreme measures to pay less to workers and a lack of new investment (the corporate sector has been a net saver since the early 2000s).
The propagandizing nevertheless has gotten so shameless it appeared to be time to point out particularly egregious examples.
Read more...Matt Stoller: Why It’s Worth Fighting Over Who Runs the SEC
Matt Stoller is a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. You can follow him at http://www.twitter.com/matthewstoller
I’ve been trying to figure out what is going on with the Securities and Exchange Commission for the past month or so, because it is the biggest weakness in our regulatory apparatus. In an interview with Neil Barofsky at Salon, he says that he would take the SEC job if offered. His plan for reform would involve rearranging enforcement priorities at the agency, and reexamine the policy whereby the SEC does not bring cases against corporations but settles without forcing an admission of guilt on particular facts.
This policy has turned the SEC into an agency that issues parking tickets.
Read more...Bill Black: Note to Italy – Please Send Us More Saracenos
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. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives
Austerity has driven unemployment among young Italian adults to over 35%. The result is that Italian university graduates are emigrating. This loss of Italy’s greatest source of future productivity gains is particularly crippling because Italy has far fewer university graduates than most developed nations.
Read more...Links 12/6/12
Khuzami Deathwatch: SEC Ignores Tips About $12 Billion of Hidden Losses at Deutsche Bank
Two days ago, we said it was time to fire the SEC’s chief of enforcement Robert Khuzami, who has not provided the tough policing warranted by the biggest financial crisis in the agency’s history. We didn’t anticipate that the story of Khuzami’s negligence would blow so big so quickly. Today, the Financial Times reported that three separate whistleblowers charged that Deutsche Bank had mismarked up to $12 billion in exposures to make it look healthier in 2008 and 2009 than it was, yet the agency had not acted on these allegations. And had Deutsche carried its positions at the levels these former employees suggest was more accurate, Germany’s biggest bank may well have needed a bailout.
Read more...Econ4 Video on the Housing and Foreclosure Crisis (With Your Humble Blogger in a Supporting Role)
Econ4, which is a group of reform minded economists (that may sound like an oxymoron but it isn’t) is presenting a series of videos on major topics where it believes our policies are seriously out of whack. Their latest release is on housing and foreclosures. Your humble blogger is a participant.
Read more...