Blog entry Tue 2009-10-13 20:30 EDT

Movement To Block Bernanke Gathers Steam

Isaiah J. Poole

The renomination of Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve should not be rubber-stamped by the Senate until Bernanke and the Fed are more transparent and accountable to the public, says a growing coalition of activists roused by Reps. Alan Grayson and Ron Paul, who have asked the Senate to put a hold on Bernanke's nomination...all it takes is for one member of the Senate to object to moving Bernanke's nomination to the floor of the Senate. The tactic of placing a hold on a Senate nomination has been frequently used by Republicans against Obama administration appointees for for less consequential reasons than what is happening with trillions of taxpayer dollars in the name of staving off the next Great Depression. What's unclear is whether a member of Congress will be bold enough to stand up to Wall Street and to what William Greider calls "the temple."

Block Bernanke Gathers Steam; blog entry; movement.

Sat 2009-10-10 14:19 EDT

A financial revolution with profound political implications

Robert Fisk

The plan to de-dollarise the oil market, discussed both in public and in secret for at least two years and widely denied yesterday by the usual suspects -- Saudi Arabia being, as expected, the first among them -- reflects a growing resentment in the Middle East, Europe and in China at America's decades-long political as well as economic world dominance. [dollar losing reserve status]

financial revolution; profound political implications.

Thu 2009-10-08 17:10 EDT

Recovering from Neoliberal Disaster - Why Iceland and Latvia Won't (and Can't) Pay

Michael Hudson

Can Iceland and Latvia pay the foreign debts run up by a fairly narrow layer of their population? The European Union and International Monetary Fund have told them to replace private debts with public obligations, and to pay by raising taxes, slashing public spending and obliging citizens to deplete their savings. Resentment is growing not only toward those who ran up these debts -- Iceland's bankrupt Kaupthing and Landsbanki with its Icesave accounts, and heavily debt-leveraged property owners and privatizers in the Baltics and Central Europe -- but also toward the neoliberal foreign advisors and creditors who pressured these governments to sell off the banks and public infrastructure to insiders. Support in Iceland for joining the EU has fallen to just over a third of the population, while Latvia's Harmony Center party, the first since independence to include a large segment of the Russian-speaking population, has gained a majority in Riga and is becoming the most popular national party. Popular protests in both countries have triggered rising political pressure to limit the debt burden to a reasonable ability to pay...

Iceland; Latvia; Neoliberal Disaster; pay; recover.

Thu 2009-09-17 09:31 EDT

Why capitalism fails - The Boston Globe

Stephen Mihm

Mainstream economics rediscovers Hyman Minsky; ``Instability,'' he wrote, ``is an inherent and inescapable flaw of capitalism.''...Minsky drew his own, far darker, lessons from Keynes's landmark writings, which dealt not only with the problem of unemployment, but with money and banking...Minsky argued that Keynes's collective work amounted to a powerful argument that capitalism was by its very nature unstable and prone to collapse. Far from trending toward some magical state of equilibrium, capitalism would inevitably do the opposite. It would lurch over a cliff...Minsky spent the last years of his life, in the early 1990s, warning of the dangers of securitization and other forms of financial innovation, but few economists listened. Nor did they pay attention to consumers' and companies' growing dependence on debt, and the growing use of leverage within the financial system... Minsky...argued for a ``bubble-up'' approach, sending money to the poor and unskilled first. The government - or what he liked to call ``Big Government'' - should become the ``employer of last resort,'' he said, offering a job to anyone who wanted one at a set minimum wage. It would be paid to workers who would supply child care, clean streets, and provide services that would give taxpayers a visible return on their dollars. In being available to everyone, it would be even more ambitious than the New Deal, sharply reducing the welfare rolls by guaranteeing a job for anyone who was able to work. Such a program would not only help the poor and unskilled, he believed, but would put a floor beneath everyone else's wages too, preventing salaries of more skilled workers from falling too precipitously, and sending benefits up the socioeconomic ladder.

Boston Globe; Capitalism Failed.

naked capitalism Sun 2009-09-13 12:26 EDT

Guest Post: Top Economists Say We Must Break Up the Insolvent Banks (Government Says Let's Make Them Bigger)

George Washington of Washington's Blog

The following top economists and financial experts believe that the economy cannot recover unless the big, insolvent banks are broken up in an orderly fashion: Joseph Stiglitz, Ed Prescott, R. Glenn Hubbard, Simon Johnson, Thomas Hoenig, Neal S. Wolin, Sheila Bair, Anna Schwartz, William K. Black, et al...And yet, the top economic policy makers (Summer, Geithner and Bernanke)...don't want to break up the insolvent giants or even keep them from growing, don't want to reinstate Glass-Steagall, and want to let the banks keep using their same inaccurate models, overseen by the same spineless regulators.

bigger; break; Government Says Let's Make; Guest Post; insolvent banks; naked capitalism; Top economist says.

Calculated Risk Fri 2009-09-04 19:23 EDT

FHA: The Next Bailout?

CalculatedRisk

John Burns Consulting sent out a note today titled: FHA Likely To Be The Next Shoe To Drop"The FHA's aggressive lending programs have continued throughout the housing downturn, causing its market share of the mortgage industry to grow from 2% in 2005 to 23% today. ... The FHA insurance fund, however, is likely running dry. ...

Bailout; Calculated Risk; FHA.

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis Thu 2009-08-27 10:52 EDT

Bankrupt Auto Parts Suppliers Seek $100 Million In Executive Bonuses

Michael Shedlock

In every corner, greed continues to amaze. Please consider Bankrupt suppliers seek exec bonuses. A growing number of bankrupt auto suppliers are seeking court approval to pay tens of millions of dollars in bonuses to key executives, as they shed employees and cut costs.

100; Bankrupt Auto Parts Suppliers Seek; executives bonus; Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis.

ClubOrlov Wed 2009-08-26 15:25 EDT

Local food: success is 100% possible

kollapsnik

This is a guest post from Tim, a city planner from sunny Moncton, NB. Tim has spent some time looking into the viability of local, small scale agriculture, and has come up with some results that give us every reason to be optimistic regarding our ability to feed ourselves through our individual and neighborhood-scale efforts, even as the systems of large-scale, industrial agriculture and food delivery unravel due to a combination of high input costs, epic droughts brought on by accelerating climate change, and a shortage of credit caused by the financial collapse. The remaining challenge is start doing it quickly enough: this summer, that is. "Russian households (inclusive of both urban and rural) collectively grow 92% of country's potatoes on their garden-plots, the size of which is typically...

100; ClubOrlov; local food; possible; Success.

Mon 2009-04-06 00:00 EDT

Bill Moyers Journal . Transcripts | PBS

ex-banking regulator William K. Black calls fraud: ``make really bad loans, because they pay better. Then you grow extremely rapidly, in other words, you're a Ponzi-like scheme. And the third thing you do is we call it leverage. That just means borrowing a lot of money, and the combination creates a situation where you have guaranteed record profits in the early years. That makes you rich, through the bonuses that modern executive compensation has produced. It also makes it inevitable that there's going to be a disaster down the road.''

Bill Moyers Journal; PBS; Transcript.

Thu 2009-02-26 00:00 EST

Calculated Risk: The Growing Chorus for Nationalization

Bill Moyers interviews Simon Johnson

Calculated Risk; growing chorus; nation.

Wed 2009-02-11 00:00 EST

Calculated Risk: We're All Subprime Now! *

Calculated Risk: We're All Subprime Now! growing foreclosure crisis transcends subprime

Calculated Risk; subprime.

Tue 2008-08-05 00:00 EDT

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Deleveraging Risk High And Growing At Lehman

Deleveraging Risk High; growing; Lehman; Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis.

Sun 2008-05-18 00:00 EDT

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Mike Morgan: Decession or Depression?

"nventory of homes is now beyond a two year supply and growing, while prices are falling off the cliff." "at least a third of todays builders will be bankrupt within the next 18 months."largest source of inventory is the homes moving through the foreclosure process" "The snakes have moved out of the mortgage business and into the REO disposition business."

Decession; Depression; Mike Morgan; Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis.

Mon 2008-03-31 00:00 EDT

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Who's Holding The Bag?

Buffett versus Greenspan on derivatives; "the development of credit derivatives has contributed to the stability of the banking system", or "rapidly growing trade in derivatives poses a "mega-catastrophic risk" for the economy"; 2007-07-04

bag; Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis; S hold.

Mon 2007-11-12 00:00 EST

Minyanville -

Minyan Peter: Bank Earnings Post Mortem (2007-10-26); originate for resale/securitization business model broken; balance sheets growing; credit quality deteriorating; formerly abundant credit becoming scarce resource

Minyanville.

Wed 2007-08-29 00:00 EDT

Calls grow louder for international overview of U.S. markets - Print Version - International Herald Tribune

Calls grow louder for international overview of U.S. markets, by Heather Timmons and Katrin Bennhold (International Herald Tribune); Loan crisis blamed on lax regulators

calls grow louder; internal overview; International Herald Tribune; Print version; U.S. market.