Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has a good piece up at the Telegraph on an issue that appears not to have gotten the attention it merits, namely, the level of underutlization of capacity and the risk it poses to anything dimly resembling recovery. Evans-Pritchard brings up a related topic, that deflation is a bigger issue that most commentators […]
Read more...Reader Alex C sent a link to an article in the Guardian by Mark Weisbrot in which he surveys some recent findings aht disproved cherished myths about the US economy. Two are related to the widely-held fantasy that America is a land of dynamic entrepreneurship. In fact, a recent study found that the US ranks […]
Read more...The 1980s supermodel Linda Evangelista once said. “We don’t wake up for less than $10,000 a day.” That seems to be the motto of American bankers, (save Citigroup’s Andrew Hall, who needs 40 times that much per business day). Not only do they not care about things banks used to deem as important, like playing […]
Read more...The most interesting aspect of the latest stage of the tempest-in-a-teapot over now famous Phibro trader Andrew Hall’s contract. which could reap him as much as $100 million in 2009, is that Citi appears to be girding itself for a fight with the government over it. This stance suggests several possibilities, which by the way […]
Read more...Via e-mail, I received Tyler Durden’s post on supposed Fed stealth monetization of debt via an allegedly stealth repurchase of a big chunk of the Treasury’s latest 7 year bond issue on the Fed’s open market desk. Full disclosure: Tyler Durden has been a guest blogger here, I think he often does a very good […]
Read more...One of the most remarkable aspects of the success of Wall Street in subordinating the real economy to its wishes and needs is the con job implicit in the application of the word “innovation” to what might more accurately be described as tax evasion, regulatory arbitrage, and chicanery. Martin Mayer once described innovation as “using […]
Read more...Readers, I will confess I am only a user of garden variety search tools, with no special training, merely years of trial and error. I am having to do a quite a bit of rooting around these days to track down support for various arguments I am putting together for the book. I decided to […]
Read more...The Economist has its lead editorial and two articles (here and here) on the state of play in the economics discipline, given its failure to see the financial train wreck coming and its dismissal of those who raised early warning flags. I must confess I only got a few paragraphs into it before getting thoroughly […]
Read more...It simply amazes me that those who are cheerleading the seeming return of Wall Street to health overlook the extensive, hydra-headed subsidies they’ve received and continue to receive. The media has bought and is touting the line, “Hey, they (more accurately some) paid back the TARP, so what’s the beef?” Let us consider the other […]
Read more...Submitted by Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns. I just read a CNBC story which fails to mention CNBC’s involvement in the apparently erroneous report that Nouriel Roubini has suddenly become more bullish. Is this omission justified? The controversy centers on statements Roubini made regarding the timing of a technical recovery in the United States. Yesterday, […]
Read more...Lordie, is the media incapable of doing anything more than writing up official remarks? This is the latest headline, the lead story on the Bloomberg home page right now: Dollar Gains as China Says ‘Not Aware’ of Reserve Currency Talk That is a very curious remark, given that the central bank, a mere week ago, […]
Read more...One way of shaping the news is the framing of stories. Readers are sending articles on a daily basis pointing to a bullish bias in quite a few stories. In most, it not blatant, which is why I don’t parse them, here, in that it would seem like overkill. But in fact the subtle spinning […]
Read more...Americans on average are more liberal than sterotypes about US attitudes would suggest. So why do most Americans, and more important their representatives, act as if the country is conservative-leaning? The cynical take is the most persuasive: while the numbers may be skewed to the left, the money is weighted to the right. With TV […]
Read more...Just as one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter, so to is a return to prudent lending practices now leading to “unintended consequences”, namely fewer loans being extended. The post-bubble spin-mongering continues. New lending standards now mandated by Freddie and Fannie as a result of a settlement between New York State and the mortgage giants […]
Read more...What is going on? We noted on June 12 that the World Bank has lowered its growth forecast for 2009 from a negative 1.7% to close to negative 3%. World Bank Group President announced this prior to the G8 meeting and stressed the global contraction would have particularly grim consequences for poor countries. Today we […]
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