Belvedere Management: Massive Criminal Enterprise or Defamed Fund Manager?
David Marchant says Belvedere Management is a “Massive Criminal Enterprise”. Has he gone mad, or hit the investigative journo’s jackpot?
Read more...Category Archives: Globalization
Dubious FX Broker CWM FX Claims Sports Celebrity Scalps, but Princess Anne Remains Unmolested
The CWM FX fraud bust, a murder, Princess Anne and some groping. It’s BAU in the world of sports sponsorship.
Read more...Joe Firestone: The New York Times Soft-Pedals the Dangers of the TPP
While the New York Times did a public service by joining Wikileaks in publishing a draft chapter of the TPP, the accompanying article is quite another matter. Joe Firestone has taken it upon himself toshred analyze it. The sad reality is that the Times is never going to oppose neoliberalism in a serious way.
Thoughts About the Trans-Pacific Partnership
The leak of the investment chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership has confirmed that it’s as bad as critics said it was.
Read more...Gaius Publius: Ron Wyden, Progressives and the TPP
Are progressives willing to attack Ron Wyden on TPP?
Read more...Major American Allies Ignore U.S. Pleas and Join China’s Development Bank
China’s development bank is a salvo at America’s dollar-driven financial hegemony. The US has good reason to worry about its apparent appeal.
Read more...Is Momentum Building in Japan Towards Signing the TransPacific Partnership?
US sources claim that Japan is finally warming to the TransPacific Partnership. True or not?
Read more...Gaius Publius: Astroturf “Progressive” Support for the TPP – Meet “270 Solutions”
It’s become routine to expose some of the supposedly organic proposals that come out of the Tea Party as actually sponsored by the Koch Brothers and other big corporate interests. We didn’t want to leave Democrats out in the cold in the astroturfing game. Gaius Publius discusses one ecosystem: a consulting firm, “270 Strategies” and one of its phony creations, the Progressive Coalition for American Jobs.
Read more...Did Ireland’s 12.5 Percent Corporate Tax Rate Create the Celtic Tiger?
Offshore banking and tax haven expert Nicholas Shaxson has launched a new blog, Fools’ Gold, to look at issues of ‘competitiveness’ and so-called ‘competition’ between nations. We’ve often taken issue with that policy goal, since it gives precedence to crushing labor as a way of lowering product prices to stoke exports. This approach is dubious for anything other than small economies, since all countries cannot be net exporters. Undue focus on exports as a driver of growth results in increasing international friction, such as the currency wars that are underway now. Moreover, as we have discussed separately, trade liberalization has gone hand in hand with liberalization of capital flows, in no small measure due to US efforts to make the world safe for what were then US investment banks. Yet Carmen Reinhardt and Ken Rogoff pointed out in their study of financial crises, higher levels of international capital flows are associated with more frequent and severe financial crises.
In addition, lowering wage rates reduces domestic demand. In countries like the US, where the domestic economy is much larger than the export sector, lowering internal demand to stoke exports is misguided.
Here we look at a first case study, the real reasons behind the growth and meltdown of the famed Celtic tiger, Ireland.
Read more...Look Who is Selling the TransPacific Partnership
Some Serious Economists have signed a letter supporting the TransPacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. The missive says a lot about the discipline, and not in a good way.
Read more...Mapley Fights Back: How the Scammers Behind Virgin Gold Mining Corporation Bit Off More Than They Could Chew (VIII)
It’s high time I updated the APGMI part of the saga of Virgin Gold Mining Corporation. Here’s a round-up of the relevant parts of this sprawling series.
Read more...HSBC’s Money Laundering Nightmare (1): Mossack Fonseca
HSBC’s top brass have “no idea” about Mossack Fonseca. Here’s a primer.
Read more...The Administration’s Dishonest Response to Elizabeth Warren’s Attack on Secret Investor Arbitration Panels in Trade Deals
Elizabeth Warren is clearly getting on the Administration’s nerves.
Read more...Nurses Unite to Stop TransPacific Partnership Fast Track
In case you haven’t noticed, nurses unions have emerged as a particularly powerful and credible labor/lobbying group. So it’s encouraging to see them use their bully pulpit to rally voters to contact their Congresscritters and voice opposition to the upcoming vote on so-called fast track authority for the TransPacific Partnership. I’m heartened to see, in the Real News Network video below, that the nurses’ representative puts forward compact, factually sound arguments as to why this misnamed “trade deal” is a sop to major corporations at the expense of citizens.
Read more...Bond Star Sir Roger Moore, Three Million Phantom Geese in China, and a New Zealand Financial Services Provider
Bond Star Sir Roger Moore, Three Million Phantom Geese in China, and a New Zealand Financial Services Provider
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