avril 2011
24 billets
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Two deficits, two austerities, and quantities... →
Undoubtedly, ending an era of persistent current account deficits will prove painful to consumers accustomed to cheap imports. However, that is not ultimately an incremental cost of leaving the Euro. After all, the purpose of staying and suffering austerity would be to pay down indebtedness, which is more costly than a shift to balance. Contrite borrowers have to pay interest on past debt and run...
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Ireland: Preservation of self is true measure of... →
But Nyberg does inadvertently reveal the ultimate genius of the elite – its ability to turn its own incompetence to its advantage. Thus, for example, the directors of the banks showed gross negligence in not bothering to document or record their discussions. This manifests the attitudes that made their supposed stewardship so disastrous. But it also protects them from subsequent scrutiny.
The...
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Washington on the Rocks →
In one of history’s lucky accidents, the juxtaposition of two extraordinary events has stripped the architecture of American global power bare for all to see. Last November, WikiLeaks splashed snippets from U.S. embassy cables, loaded with scurrilous comments about national leaders from Argentina to Zimbabwe, on the front pages of newspapers worldwide. Then just a few weeks later, the Middle East...
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The eurozone’s quack solutions will be no cure →
A premature Greek default would change everything. As would the failure by the EU and Portugal to agree a rescue package in time; or an escalation in the EU’s dispute with Ireland over corporate taxes; or a ratification failure of the ESM in the German, Finnish or Dutch parliaments; or a German veto for a top-up loan for Greece in 2012; or the refusal by the Greek parliament to accept the new...
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The Breakdown: Are Financial Institutions Holding... →
During the 2008 financial meltdown, we were told by politicians, economists, bankers and industry executives that further implosion of major financial institutions would wreak havoc on the larger economy. The banks were “too big to fail,” we were told, and if the financial markets faltered, that would be bad for the rest of us. But since the financial gains of the past several years...
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Japan's Disaster and the Manufacturing Meltdown →
The effects of Japan’s March earthquake and tsunami are being felt far beyond the shattered region around Sendai and Fukushima. As U.S. auto assembly lines grind to a halt for want of components that usually come from now-disabled factories in northeastern Japan, business strategists may be forced to rethink the way globalized companies do business. The result could well be a retreat from current...
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Expecting an early Greek default →
Greece is going to restructure its debts — and it’s going to do so before mid-2013. That’s the clear message sent by the latest Reuters poll of 55 economists from across Europe: 46 of them saw a restructuring in the next two years, with four saying it would happen in the next three months.
This is a major development. The markets haven’t believed Greece for a while — but now they don’t believe...
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The year of business Pulitzers →
The Public Service award went to the LA Times for its investigation of corruption in the small municipality of Bell, California. The Investigative Reporting award went to Paige St John of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune for her great work covering Florida’s murky property-insurance system. The National Reporting award went to Jesse Eisinger and Jake Bernstein of Propublica for their big story on the...
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Anti-Bailout Party Gains in Finland →
Finnish voters dealt a blow Sunday to Europe’s plans to rescue Portugal and other debt-ridden economies, ousting the pro-bailout government and giving a major boost to a euroskeptic nationalist party.
With all ballots counted, the biggest vote-winner was the conservative National Coalition Party, part of the outgoing center-right government and a strong advocate for European integration.
...
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John Stuart Mill fustigerait la «nouvelle» droite... →
Déjà en 1848, John Stuart Mill, dans Principles of Political Economy, était engagé dans une argumentation contre l’incohérence d’une droite qui utilisait la même base rhétorique qu’aujourd’hui (c’est-à-dire le «trop d’État»). Mill, pourtant reconnu par plusieurs — dont le néoclassique Frederick Von Hayek — comme étant le plus grand philosophe du libéralisme...
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9 Things The Rich Don't Want You To Know About... →
Gretchen Carlson, the Fox News host, said last year “47 percent of Americans don’t pay any taxes.” John McCain and Sarah Palin both said similar things during the 2008 campaign about the bottom half of Americans.
Ari Fleischer, the former Bush White House spokesman, once said “50 percent of the country gets benefits without paying for them.”
Actually, they pay lots of taxes—just not lots of...
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The radical right and the US state - Martin Wolf →
The Ryan plan is a “reductio ad absurdum” – a disproof by taking a proposition to a logical conclusion. It would turn the government into a miserly provider of pensions and health insurance. These functions would absorb three-quarters of non-interest spending by 2050. Other functions, including even defence, would collapse. This is most unlikely to happen. Indeed, even if the government were...
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The Real Housewives of Wall Street - Taibbi →
Most Americans know about that budget. What they don’t know is that there is another budget of roughly equal heft, traditionally maintained in complete secrecy. After the financial crash of 2008, it grew to monstrous dimensions, as the government attempted to unfreeze the credit markets by handing out trillions to banks and hedge funds. And thanks to a whole galaxy of obscure, acronym-laden...
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Inside George Soros’s “Monstrous Monkey House” →
Snow-capped peaks; nightcaps with Larry Summers; discussions of complexity theory over breakfast; Tennyson quotations from Gordon Brown at lunch. No it’s not Davos—it’s Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, where over the weekend the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), which George Soros set up in the wake of the financial crisis, held its second annual conference. Last year’s inaugural...
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INET Conference: Joseph Stiglitz →
Martin Wolf interviews economist Joseph Stiglitz at the Bretton Woods, New Hampshire Crisis and Renewal: International Political Economy at the Crossroads conference hosted by the New Institute for New Economic Thinking (17m 47sec)
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Bankers Get Off Scot-Free in Industry Overhaul →
Everything you needed to know about the long-awaited report of the U.K.’s Independent Commission on Banking was summed up in a few share prices yesterday.
Barclays Plc (BARC) and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc (RBS) surged after details on overhauling the finance industry were released.
Split up the banks? Shut them down? Make them move elsewhere? No. The commission came up with some...
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European Debt Crisis Morphs Into New Phase:... →
With reduced concern about the contagion spreading up the credit-quality ladder, these three official lenders will be less willing to continue to pile new debt on top of old debt, and rightly so. The approach taken so far, while succeeding in retarding the day of reckoning for private creditors and banks, has involved significant costs.
The strategy has shifted even more of the burden to already...
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Why People Say “Eeh!” When They Learn About the... →
During the eurobubble years, there were huge capital flows to peripheral economies, leading to a sharp rise in their costs relative to Germany. Now the bubble has burst, and one way or another those relative costs need to be brought back in line. But should that take place via German inflation or Spanish deflation?
From a pan-European view, the answer is surely some of both — and given that...
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Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1% - Stiglitz →
It’s no use pretending that what has obviously happened has not in fact happened. The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year. In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent. Their lot in life has improved considerably. Twenty-five years ago, the corresponding figures were 12 percent and 33 percent. One response...
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Lire la vidéoThe next housing shock
April 3, 2011 5:00 PM
As more and more Americans face mortgage foreclosure, banks’ crucial ownership documents for the properties are often unclear and are sometimes even bogus, a condition that’s causing lawsuits and hampering an already weak housing market. Scott Pelley reports.
Read more:...
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Stephen Harper fournit 4 milliards aux Newfies →
C’est un véritable affront qu’a fait, hier, le chef conservateur Stephen Harper au gouvernement du Québec en promettant de garantir un prêt de 4,2 milliards pour la construction du projet hydroélectrique du Bas-Churchill, au Labrador, évalué à 6,2 milliards. Stephen Harper a fait cette annonce à St. John’s lors d’une assemblée de partisans en présence de la première...
