“If You Are Not Building a Nation, Then What the Fuck Are You Doing?”
How arrogant ignorance has squandered the US position of world leadership.
Read more...Category Archives: Economic fundamentals
Oil Markets Could Be In For A Shock From China Soon
China’s oil consumption is a bigger part of global demand than most analysts acknowledge. A slowdown in buying after China stopped stockpiling diesel for the summer Olympics was a proximate cause of the 2008 oil bust. China is again in a stockpiling phase, which could precede another not-well-anticipated demand drop.
Read more...TPP: Don Beyer (D-VA) Puts “Free Trade” Above National Sovereignty and Democracy
Debunking “free trade” and other spurious defenses of the multinational enrichment, democracy stripmining programs known as the Trade in Services Agreement, the TransPacific Partnership, and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.
Read more...The Geopolitics of American Global Decline: Washington Versus China in the Twenty-First Century
America’s current leadership has failed to grasp the significance of a radical global change underway inside the Eurasian land mass. If China succeeds in linking its rising industries to the vast natural resources of the Eurasian heartland, then quite possibly, as Sir Halford Mackinder predicted on that cold London night in 1904, “the empire of the world would be in sight.”
Read more...G-7 Throws Greece Under the Bus
Some observers thought that Greece might get a break in the G-7 summit this weekend. While the G-7 has one more day to run, the statements coming out of the summit strongly and uniformly back the creditor position.
Read more...Syriza Commits to Deep Austerity in Its Proposal to Creditors
Greece has already offered to continue with a program of significant austerity. No wonder the creditors are close to agreeing to that part of the government’s proposal.
Read more...Tsipras Fighting Two Front War as Revolt Within Syriza Intensifies, Forcing IMF Payment Delay, Cancellation of Negotiating Session
As Tsipras’ options narrow thanks to the revolt in his party, it is also becoming harder for even Merkel to forestall a default.
Read more...The Economics of Parallel Currencies
As Greece’s cash crunch continues and its negotiations are moving slowing and tending towards an impasse, it becomes more and more likely that the beleaguered borrower will issue some sort of scrip in order to fund operations while remaining in the Eurozone. How and how well might that work?
Read more...Wall Street Journal Questions Fed Beige Book “Rosy” Take on “Recovery”
Is the august Wall Street Journal hinting that the “recovery” has no clothes?
Read more...Satyajit Das: My Big Fat Greek Crisis
Yves here. Das published this post in February and I thought it would be useful to reprise it for three reasons. First, it has held up well to the passage of time. Second, for latecomers to the Greek saga, it summarizes the background, the stances of the parties, and key economic and financial considerations. Third, the section starting “Controlled Warfare” (about 2/3 of the way through the post) summarizes the consequences to the lenders of a Grexit. Those risks are why almost no one thought we’d wind up where we are now, with two sides issuing ultimatums a mere two days before a possible Greek default, and why most of the financial media still believes a deal will get done.
Read more...“The Notion of the Competitiveness of Countries is Nonsense”
A 2004 book by Martin Wolf provided the intellectual foundation for the competitiveness fad. Ironically, Wolf debunked his own thesis in it.
Read more...Greece’s Shortening Negotiating Runway and Possibly Erroneous Assumptions
Le Monde published a defiant op ed by Alex Tsipras over the weekend. The wee problem is that Greece is well past the point where political appeals will work.
Read more...Wolf Richter: When Betting on QE Suddenly Goes Wrong
Central banks think they’re omnipotent – until they aren’t.
Read more...Michael Hudson: Ukraine’s “Operation Vulture” and Labor Protests
Hudson’s so-called “Operation Vulture,” the strip-mining of what little is left of a functioning economy in Ukraine, comes straight out of the neoliberal playbook.
Read more...The Fed’s Dereliction of Duty and False Capital Flows Morality
The Fed disavows responsibility for the way US interest rate policy sends money sloshing around the world. It’s a huge mistake intellectually and politically.
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