Category Archives: Macroeconomic policy

Iberian Pain Only Getting Worse as Spanish Population Falls, Portugal Goes All in For More Failed Austerity

Yves here. Wolf Richter’s latest post may seem a bit breathless, but my assumption is that this rhetorical choice is an effort to try to penetrate Eurocrisis fatigue. The continuing decay, the ongoing last minute patch-ups, the Punch and Judy show between Germany and anyone who dares say anything bad about its perverse creditor moralism, is feeling so stale that it’s easy to tune out.

Yet even though the headlines all seem to be of a muchness, they mask an ongoing deterioration that at some point will produce a state change.

Richard Alford: Monetary Policy, Household Balance Sheets, and Recoveries from Financial Crises

By Richard Alford, a former New York Fed economist. Since then, he has worked in the financial industry as a trading floor economist and strategist on both the sell side and the buy side.

Five years after the financial crisis and halfway to a lost decade, economists, policymakers and the public are looking for answers that will restore economic health and vibrancy. Their concern has increased recently with the approaching “fiscal cliff” and the possibility of a double-dip recession. To find remedies, they’ve examined past financial crises that were followed by protracted economic downturns. In the US, the precedent studied and cited most frequently has been the Great Depression of the 1930s, including the double dip of 1938. Unfortunately, economists have produced a variety of inconsistent explanations for both the initial contraction and the prolonged period without a self-sustained recovery.

Michael Hudson on How Finance Capital Leads to Debt Servitude

This edited transcript is expanded from a live phone interview with Michael Hudson by Dimitris Yannopoulos for Athens News. It summarizes some of the major themes from Hudson’s new book, The Bubble and Beyond: Fictitious Capital, Debt Deflation and Global Crisis, which is available on Amazon.

Q: How has the financial system evolved into the form of economic servitude that you call “debt peonage” in your book, implying a negation of democracy as well as free-market capitalism as classically understood?

Yanis Varoufakis: The Game of the Two Marios

Yves here. Yanis called this post “Europe’s Modern Titanomachy: How Europe’s future is being shaped by large battles on seemingly small matters (Part C)” but that title obscures the point. His piece works though how the choices of ECB chief Mario Draghi and Italy’s prime minister Mario Monti interact with each other, and what that means for the future of the Eurozone: “Today’s Great Expectations (regarding the ECB’s intervention, banking union, Brussel’s federal moves etc.) are more likely to prive Dickensian than literal.”

Yanis Varoufakis on the Crisis in Greece

In this interview with Max Keiser, Yanis Varoufakis gives a vivid account of conditions on the ground in Greece and why he is still pessimistic for the prospects for the eurozone.

The Euro as Idealist Project or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Pragmatic Elites

By Nathan Tankus,s a member of Occupy Wall Street Alternative Banking working group. He is also deeply involved in the heterodox economics community and plans to have a PhD in economics before the decade is done. Cross posted with View From the Metropole.

In accounts of American economic history, the early days of banking are typically described as chaotic, contradictory and many decisions are depicted as awful, stupid mistakes. That period certainly included all these things, but looking at Europe now, one can’t help but feel that many back then (especially the elites) understood money better and were much better pragmatists.

Markets Applaud Draghi’s New, Improved Kick the Can Down the Road Strategy

On Thursday, ECB chief Mario Draghi announced a bond-buying program that had been largely leaked the day prior, namely that of a new bond buying program, the Outright Monetary Transactions, or OMT. Bond yields in Italy and Spain had already come down on the rumor, and stock markets around the world rallied on the news.

The enthusiasm appears overdone when you look at the sketchy details.

Spain Worse

By Delusional Economics, who is horrified at the state of economic commentary in Australia and is determined to cleanse the daily flow of vested interests propaganda to produce a balanced counterpoint. Cross posted from MacroBusiness

As I wrote early last week Antonis Samaras was to spend much of the weekend in talks with Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande about the future of his nation. As the Telegraph pointed out yesterday the results were, as expected, unconvincing:

“Nonsense Economics” and the Deepening Greek Crisis

Real News Network has a sobering interview with Costas Lapavitsas,a professor at the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies, who gives an update on the political and economic situation in Greece.