Yves here. Varoufakis performs the important service of translating what is effectively a formal communication from Germany on its stance towards subject states, meaning the Eurozone periphery.
Read more...Yves here. As readers likely recall, Thomas Herndon, Michael Ash, and Robert Pollin of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst wrote a paper, “Does High Public Debt Consistently Stifle Economic Growth? A Critique of Reinhart and Rogoff,” which revealed serious methodological problems with one of the linchpin papers used to justify cutting government spending even in times of recession. Robert Pollin here discusses some of the bigger issues in the political and economic debates on austerity and the aftermath of the financial crisis.
Read more...A Real News Network interview with Chris Hedges precipitated a lively, thoughtful discussion of the mess we are in as a civilization and whether we can pull ourselves out of what looks like a nosedive.
I thought readers might enjoy continuing the exchange, and the latest release in this Real News Network series should provide ample grist for debate.
Read more...Yves here. The high social cost of inequality – the fact that it shortens the lives of people at the top of the pecking order along with the lower orders – has long been excluded from discussion in polite company in the US.
Read more...One of hedge fund manager David Einhorn’s saying is “no matter how bad you think it is, it’s worse.” An article in Washington Monthly, Special Deal by Haley Sweetland Edwards, deep dives into one big and largely hidden reason why medical costs in the US are out of control and are unlikely to be reined in any time soon.
Read more...Only a small part of the TransPacific Partnership is about trade as such. Most chapters are on other issues, like services, investment, government procurement, disciplines on state-owned enterprises and intellectual property.
Joining the TPP or similar free trade agreements will mean the country having to make often drastic changes to existing policies, laws and regulations, which will in turn affect the domestic economy and society.
Read more...Yves here. I wonder if the pattern described in this article, which is basically a brain drain of inventors to the US, is playing a meaningful role in the degradation of public education in the US. Why do the elites need to care about home-grown “talent” if they exploit the investments in schooling made by other countries?
Read more...The poor have to endure not just the indignity of struggling to survive, but also from having to listen to pious lectures on how they really can proper on their meager incomes.
Read more...Econ4, a group of heterodox economists, has released a short video and a statement on the “new economy” which they define as more sustainable and equitable forms of organizing “productive” activity and the resources that support them.
Read more...Yves here. Because the European slow-motion train wreck is turning out to be particularly slow, it’s almost become background noise in the US, almost a lesser version of the now two lost decades in Japan. But what is happing in Europe is less benign and less likely to be able to continue anywhere near that long.
Read more...In a new article at the Prospect, Harold Meyerson tells us that unions are getting higher marks than they did a few years ago:
Read more...By lambert strether of Corrente.
Obama’s career transition from selling hope and change to selling insurance seems to be, at least so far, a wee bit rocky. Kudos to WaPo’s Sarah Kliff and Sandhya Somashekhar for breaking the story of the newest #FAIL, which required them to process 600 pages of dense HHS prose on July 5; a classic Friday document dump, with bonus points for the holiday weekend, and super double bonus sparkle pony points for following hard on the heels of another huge #FAIL, Obama’s triage of the employer reporting mandate (chirped White House apparatchick Valerie Jarrett: “We are full steam ahead for the Marketplaces [exchanges] opening on October 1.” Right onto the rocks, Val!). Kliff and Somashekhar write:
Read more...Yves here. While some of the concerns in this post are specific to Australia, they can be readily translated to other property regimes. The part that is missing, however, is that the US relies on “real estate taxes” which includes the value of the buildings on the land. Michael Hudson has advocated taxing land much more heavily, since unlike taxing capital or labor, it does not burden the economy with higher costs . As he explains in a 2009 interview:
Read more...Higher education used to be free for millions of Americans. A transaction tax on the financial houses could help make it free again
Read more...If you think Independence Day came to be a national holiday as an organic expression of pride in our successful rebellion against England, you need to think twice.
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