Asia Times Online Thu 2009-09-17 09:23 EDT
The US Federal Reserve faces an intractable unemployment problem. Households, their wealth savaged by the financial crisis and their job security threatened, are now paying off debts and cutting back on purchases. Until consumer spending picks up, no recovery can come.
ClubOrlov Wed 2009-08-26 15:35 EDT
The US has lost the "War on Drugs" The losing side is usually not the one to decide when a fight is over or how it ends Unlike other recent defeats, this lost war is a defeat followed by an invasion Mexico is the natural staging area for the invasion (inconvenient though it is for the Mexicans)New franchises are being set up to service the North American drug market (which is the biggest in the world) The CIA has to eat, and all they know how to do competently is run guns and drugs and control thugs; they get a seat at the table The narcs have to eat too, and all they are trained to do is deal (with) drugs; they get a seat at the table tooAs...
Thu 2009-07-30 00:00 EDT
Michael Hudson: The Toll Booth Economy -- by Michael Hudson ``The Latest in Junk Economics'' What is missing is a critique of the big picture how Wall Street has financialized the public domain to inaugurate a neo-feudal tollbooth economy while privatizing the government itself, headed by the Treasury and Federal Reserve. Left untouched is the story how industrial capitalism has succumbed to an insatiable and unsustainable finance capitalism, whose newest final stage seems to be a zero-sum game of casino capitalism based on derivative swaps and kindred hedge fund gambling innovations...What have been lost are the Progressive Eras two great reforms. First, minimizing the economys free lunch of unearned income (e.g., monopolistic privilege and privatization of the public domain in contrast to ones own labor and enterprise) by taxing absentee property rent and asset-price (capital) gains, by keeping natural monopolies in the public domain, and by anti-trust regulation...A second Progressive Era aim was to steer the financial sector so as to fund capital formation. Industrial credit was best achieved in Germany and Central Europe in the decades prior to World War I. But the Allied victory led to the dominance of Anglo-American banking practice, based on loans against property or income streams already in place. Todays bank credit has become decoupled from capital formation, taking the form mainly of mortgage credit (80 per cent), and loans secured by corporate stock (for mergers, acquisitions and corporate raids) as well as for speculation. The effect is to spur asset-price inflation on credit, in ways that benefit the few at the expense of the economy at large.''
Thu 2009-07-23 00:00 EDT
Tue 2009-06-16 00:00 EDT
China's "dollar trap": Lessons from France's 1920s "sterling trap" | vox - Research-based policy analysis and commentary from leading economists; ``Frances sterling trap ended disastrously. Sterling suffered a major currency crisis, French authorities lost a lot of money, and subsequent policy reactions deepened the Great Depression.''
China's; commentary; Dollar Trap; France's 1920s; leading economists; Lessons; research-based policy analysis; sterling trap; Vox.
Tue 2009-04-21 00:00 EDT
naked capitalism: Guest Post: Geithner's Faustian bargain, the general interest, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Uncle Sam's lost inner compass, by Swedish Lex
Geithner's Faustian bargain; general interest; Guest Post; Jean-Jacques Rousseau; naked capitalism; Uncle Sam's lost inner compass.
Rick Bookstaber Thu 2009-04-02 00:00 EDT
capital-weighted annualized returns measures hedge fund value-added; large hedges funds have on net lost money for their investors since inception
Fri 2009-01-16 00:00 EST
Thu 2009-01-15 00:00 EST
Wed 2008-12-10 00:00 EST
Tue 2008-11-25 00:00 EST
Tue 2008-09-02 00:00 EDT
The Newer Deal: The Path to a Democratic Supermajority, by Michael Lind (Salon, 2008-08-15) | The New America Foundation; ``Social conservatives, having lost the culture war, should be offered not only a truce but also an opportunity to join a broad economic campaign for a middle-class America, as many of them did between 1932 and 1968. When pro-choicers and pro-lifers unite in cheering the public investment and living wage planks at the convention of the neo-Roosevelt party, we will know that the political era that began in 1968 is truly and finally over.''
Democratic supermajority; New America Foundation; Newer Deal; path.
Sat 2008-07-12 00:00 EDT
Thu 2008-07-03 00:00 EDT
The Other Real Estate Disaster, by Stephane Fitch, Forbes.com; private equity real estate funds lost billions of pension fund capital
Tue 2008-06-03 00:00 EDT
"China has lost control of its monetary policy"
Fri 2008-05-30 00:00 EDT
Lost Opportunities Haunt Final Days of Bear Stearns, by Kate Kelly, WSJ.com
Bear Stearns; com; Lost Opportunities Haunt Final Days; WSJ.
