Negative Real Rates Signify a Broken Financial System
How the debate on negative real rates has missed role of demand for “safe” collateral for derivative positions, and why that is central.
Read more...Category Archives: Economic fundamentals
Failure of Globalization and the Fourth Estate
“Free Trade,” the banner of Globalization, has not only wrecked the world’s economy, it has left Western Democracy in shambles.
Read more...Joe Firestone: Fiscal Myths of Campaign 2016
Most of the world, and most notably the United States, is in the grip of fiscal myths fostered by the ideology of neoliberalism. It’s time to debunk them.
Read more...Mathew D. Rose: Hubris and Nemesis In Germany – Volkswagen, Refugees, and Football
Finding the common threads of Germany’s latest scandals.
Read more...5 of the Biggest Acts of Corporate Hypocrisy in America
Socialism for the rich is inherently hypocritical….but which forms of corporate truth-distortion are the most brazen?
Read more...Adam Levitin: Fighting for the Middle Class
How the deck is stacked against the middle class, and what it takes to change that.
Read more...Michael Hudson: The Paradox of Financialized Industrialization
The great question today is whether post-feudal rentier capitalism will stifle industrial capitalism instead of serving it. The aim of finance is not merely to exploit labor, but to conquer and appropriate industry, real estate and government. The result is a financial oligarchy, neither industrial capitalism nor a tendency to evolve into socialism.
Read more...Wolf Richter: Debt Fueled Stock Buybacks Now Eating into Earnings
Companies with investment-grade credit ratings – the cream-of-the-crop “high-grade” corporate borrowers – have gorged on borrowed money. Interest on that mountain of debt, which grew another 4% in the second quarter, is now eating their earnings like never before.
Read more...Michael Perelman: The Essential Handbook for Engineering an Unequal Society
While the thrust of Perelman’s post is no doubt familiar to readers, take note of how simple and few in number are the essential principles for creating a highly unequal society, and how easy it is to describe them them in antiseptic language.
Read more...Michael Hoexter: Should the US Federal Government Invest $4-$6 Trillion Per Year on Climate Protection? (Part 2 of 2)
Further discussion of why the excuses to do nothing or too little on the climate change front don’t hold up to serious scrutiny.
Read more...Michael Hoexter: Should the US Federal Government Invest $4-$6 Trillion Per Year on Climate Protection? (Part 1 of 2)
Why the excuses to do nothing or too little on the climate change front don’t hold up to serious scrutiny.
Read more...Mark Blyth: “Austerity Cures Nothing”
This is a bracing, no-nonsene talk from economist Mark Blyth of Brown University, who is the author of Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century and Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea.
Read more...The Financial Sector is Too Big
Has the financial sector become too large, absorbing too many resources, and enhancing instabilities?
Read more...Trans-Pacific Partnership: Should the Key Losers – China and Europe – Join Forces?
Can China and Europe forge a pact to undercut the impact of the Trans-Pacific Partnership?
Read more...Could The Syrian Conflict Irrevocably Change Global Geopolitics?
A concise, high-level overview of the main issues at play in the Syrian conflict.
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