Yearly Archives: 2013

Michael Olenick: How My Experience with Healthcare.gov Shows “Better” Software May Not Be the Solution

By Michael Olenick, a regular contributor on Naked Capitalism. You can follow him on Twitter at @michael_olenick

This piece about my attempts to enroll on healthcare.gov runs the risk of being long, frustrating, and potentially repetitive, but that simply reflects the experience itself. But it also gives a taste of the nature of the problems and where the remedies might lie.

Markets Enter Blowoff

You know something is going wrong when the heads of the largest fund manager in the world and the largest bond management firm simultanously scream ”bubble”.

FBI Raids, Lord Heseltine’s Haymarket Media Group, Financial Regulator “Crackdowns”, “What Car” Magazine…and Carbon Neutral Investments Limited

How two wide boys with shady pasts snared a leading British publisher that has major political connections.

Links 10/29/13

We Discuss the JP Morgan “Settlement” on Democracy Now

I was glad to get the chance to discuss the misnamed JP Morgan settlement on Democracy Now yesterday. It’s misnamed because it’s not a single settlement, but a series of settlements, mainly if not entirely FHFA and state actions, bundled together, plus fines. Plus as you will see soon that’s far from the only way it’s been misreported!

The Glam and The Scam: Sauber Formula 1 Team and its Partner, Carbon Neutral Investments, Limited

The Sauber F1 team and their dodgy partners, Carbon Neutral Investments

Stranded Fossil Fuels? Institutional Investors Concerned About “Unburnable Carbon” Fallout

Yves here. Given the almost innate bullish bias of equity investors, when they start worrying about something, that means it actually has non-trivial odds of happening. So the idea that investors think it’s possible that a lot of current proven fossil fuels won’t be lifted is an unexpected bit of good news on the climate change front. Whether this comes to pass soon enough to save our collective bacon is another question entirely.

Links 10/28/13

Paul Krugman’s Shocking, Revisionist, and Obscurantist Views on Single Payer

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

I hate to chew the ankles of blue America’s favorite quasi-Nobelist, because during the dark early days of Bush the Younger, his was a lonely and desperately needed voice of sanity. Also too, cats. But I read this column (“Why Is ObamaCare Complicated?”) in Conscience of a Liberal, and I was shocked. This is too much. Krugman’s piece contains historical errors, analytical errors, and errors of conscience. Let’s take each in turn:

Finance and Growth: Too Much of a Good Thing?

By Thorsten Beck, Professor of Banking and Finance, Cass Business School; Professor of Economics, Tilburg University; Research Fellow, CEPR. Originally published at VoxEU.

A well-functioning financial system is critical for economic growth. However, some studies find a negative relationship between the two at high levels of financial development. This column discusses why this is the case and suggests some policy implications. It argues that reforms that refocus the financial system on enterprise credit and on internalising the downside risks can be beneficial. [Also too, jail time. –lambert]

How Novice Eco-Warrior Michael Bloomberg Ended up Looking as if he Endorses Carbon Credit Scams

Mayor Bloomberg stitched up by Italian Vogue and a dodgy financial firm: his image and words are being exploited to market carbon credit scams

Data Shows Democrats Bought and Paid for by Surveillance Industry

Obama started looking more stressed than usual around the time of the Snowden revelations. This Real News Network interview with political scientist Tom Ferguson helps explain why. The surveillance industry, broadly defined, gave proportionately much more to Obama than other industries in the 2012 election.

Links 10/27/13