Author Archives: Yves Smith

A New Stability and Growth Pact? Let’s Drop the Technocratic Veil!

On how economic growth models constrain policy debates and choices among Eurocrats, and why that is no accident.

Links 4/6/16

Treasury Implements New Rules Aimed at Inversions, Other Tax Strategies, Scuttling Pfizer-Allergan Deal and Evoking Howls from Pharma

Mirabile dictu! Treasury took surprisingly bold action to stymie corporate inversions and some other types of multi-national tax gaming. What gives?

Elizabeth Warren Flays Former Fed Official Who Saw No Evil on Subprime Loans, Currently Peddling Line That Regulation is Too Costly (to Banks, Natch)

Warren brutalizes a bank crony who has worn regulator’s clothes at the Fed and the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. Ouch.

Links 4/5/16

Gaius Publius: Will Sanders Play His Ace?

Sanders lists demands for Clinton if he fails to get the nomination…and it includes demands like single payer that are so far from her current position that it is inconceivable that she will give them lip service.

Did Italy And Malta Actually Agree To Swap Oil Rights For Refugees?

Accusations by a Maltese political leader that Malta and Italy engaged in an oil-for-refugees swap has gotten legalistic responses.

Public Pension Funds Starting to Abandon Hedge Funds….More Than a Decade Late

Big money investors are finally starting to embrace hedge fund clones. But why did it take so long?

Leaked Memo Reveals IMF (Still) Wants Out of Greece Bailout and Plots to Pressure Germany to Act

A new leak shows the IMF as the least bad actor of the Troika, which given its record as a neoliberal fist in third world countries, speaks volumes about European politics.

Links 4/2/16

Is the Oil Price-GDP Link Broken?

Explanations of the oil price decline are starting to acknowledge deflationary factors, even though the “d” word seems to be outside the pale .

A Wake-Up Call on Climate Change and Clean Energy

Why 2017 could be an event horizon as far as climate change is concerned.

How Much Has Global Economic Power Really Shifted?

Why the shift in economic power from advanced to developing economies has not gone as far as most accounts would have you believe.