Yearly Archives: 2013

Banks Start Volcker Rule Blame Game

Nothing like being able to use something in the headlines to hide your real behavior. And even better if you can get a banking stalwart columnist to run PR for you.

Tapering Talk: The Impact of Expectations of Reduced Federal Reserve Security Purchases on Emerging Markets

Yves here. This post is important because even though the Fed is focused on the impact of QE (and hence the taper) on the domestic economy, it’s been getting enough of a hard time from central bankers of leading emerging markets economies that it least has to feign concern credibly.

The Eichengreen/Gupta paper summarized in this post concludes that, quelle surprise, the countries most vulnerable to changes in Fed policy (which really means hot money in and outflows) are those with the biggest financial markets relative to GDP. Curiously, Eichengreen and Gupta fail to note that this means the orthodox advice to developing economies, that financial “deepening” is a Good Thing and therefore should be supported by government policy, in fact reduces financial stability and makes them even more vulnerable to the moods of fickle foreign investors.

Michael Hudson: Trade Advantage Replaced by Rent Extraction

An interview with Michael Hudson, a research professor of Economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City, and a research associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, on the Renegade Economists radio/podcast

Steve Keen: Oh My, Paul Krugman Edition

Yves here. In some ways, I hate to be having such a run of Paul Krugman posts, but his stand on the TransPacific Partnership and his continued defense of dubious economic ideas that were long ago disproven, like loanable funds, in combination with his prominence, means the attention is well warranted.

Links 12/18/13

JP Morgan, Not Satisfied with Profitable WaMu Acquisition, Sues FDIC to Extract More

If you are Jamie Dimon, a good deal is apparently never good enough.

Slate Tries Presenting Amazon’s Abusive Warehouse Jobs as Great Opportunities

A mere day after strikes at Amazon warehouses in Germany, which caught the attention of the media in the US, Slate ran as its lead piece in Moneybox an article that bears all the hallmarks of being a PR plant: Amazon Warehouses Are the New Factories.

I suspect the author, Emma Roller, wouldn’t recognize a factory if it fell on her.

We Are Seven Years Old

This is one of the few years when I’ve announced the blog’s birthday on a timely basis. I’m usually so distracted that I forget until after the fact. Many people have contributed to the success of the blog over the years. One of the things that helped early on was that people at higher traffic […]

Links 12/17/13

Bubble-logic and the Fed’s “To Taper or Not to Taper”

One of the amusing things right now is that there isn’t much debate in equity-land as to whether to be long or not.

Wolf Richter: Fear And Trembling In Muni Land

Municipal bond investors, a conservative bunch who want to avoid rollercoaster rides and cliffhangers, are getting frazzled. And they’re bailing out of muni bond funds at record rate, while they still can without losing their shirts.

Ragnarok – Iceland and the ‘Doom of the Gods’

Iceland is widely portrayed as a post-bubble success story, but the reality is more conplex.

Amazon Warehouse Workers Strike in Germany Over Pay, Sweatshop Conditions

Amazon is rapidly becoming the poster child for what is wrong with the so-called new economy.

Links 12/16/13