Steve Keen's Debtwatch Sun 2009-08-30 14:33 EDT

It's Hard Being a Bear (Part Two)

Cassander

One of the reasons I'm still a bear on the economy is because the economists in the optimists camp are relying upon very bad economic theory. If that theory is telling them good times are ahead, that's one of the best predictors of bad times you could have. Capital Assets Pricing Model (CAPM) preached that stock market price shares accurately, that the amount of debt finance a company has doesn't affect its value, and many other notions that have gone up in smoke during the GFC. CAPM developer William Sharpe ``assumed a miracle'': all investors agree about the future and their expectations about the future are correct. Macroeconomic theory has been dominated by IS-LM model erroneously attributed to Keynes but actually due to convervative neoclassical John Hicks, which ``emasculated what was original in Keynes's General Theory, and this bowdlerised version of Keynes was then demolished by Friedman in the 1970s to usher in the Monetarist phase''

Bear; hard; part; Steve Keen's Debtwatch.

naked capitalism Thu 2009-08-27 10:50 EDT

Quelle Surprise! Fed Uses Scare Tactics to Try to Forestall Loan Disclosures

Yves Smith

In a show of how much our government thinks that serving the financial oligarchy, rather than the citizenry, is its prime duty, the Fed is fighting to stop the court-ordered disclosure of who borrowed money under the Fed's various lending facilities. The reason I lump the Fed in with "the government" is that the central bank has been serving as an off-balance sheet entity of the Treasury for quite some time. And not only are the Fed and Treasury acting in near lockstep, but there has been no meaningful change in the government stance towards the banksters. Yes, Team Obama makes more of a show of trying to rein them in, but push comes to shove, it's merely Paulson version 2.0: same content, better packaging. Paulson's success in muscling...

Fed Uses Scare Tactics; Forestall Loan Disclosures; naked capitalism; Quelle Surprise; trying.

naked capitalism Wed 2009-08-26 16:18 EDT

Guest Post: A Plunge in Foreign Net Capital Inflows Preceded the Break in US Financial Markets

Jesse

Served by Jesse of Le Café Américain The peak of foreign capital inflows into the US was clearly seen in the second quarter of 2007, just before the crisis in the US that has rocked its banking system and driven it deeply into recession. Are the two events connected? Had the US become a Ponzi scheme that began to collapse when new investment began to wane, and the growth of returns could not be maintained? Watch the dollar and the Treasury and Agency Debt auctions for any further signs of capital flight, which is when those net inflows of foreign capital turn negative. And if for some reason the unlikely happens and it gains momentum, the dollar and bonds and stocks can all go lower in unison, and there...

break; financial market; Foreign Net Capital Inflows Preceded; Guest Post; naked capitalism; plunge.

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.

ClubOrlov Wed 2009-08-26 14:22 EDT

That Bastion of American Socialism...the United States military

kollapsnik

Over the past few months the American mainstream chatter has experienced a sudden spike in the gratuitous use of the term "Socialist." It was prompted by the attempts of the federal government to resuscitate insolvent financial institutions. These attempts included offers of guarantees to their clients, injections of large sums of borrowed public money, and granting them access to almost-free credit that was magically summoned ex nihilo by the Federal Reserve. To some observers, these attempts looked like an emergency nationalization of the finance sector was underway, prompting them to cry "Socialism!" Their cries were not as strident as one would expect, bereft of the usual disdain that normally accompanies the use of this term. Rather, it was proffered with a wan smile, because the commentators could find nothing... ``Since the end of the Civil War, Americans have become accustomed to thinking of war as something that happens elsewhere, to other people. Thus, the news that the US is bombing this or that land, for no adequate reason, killing and maiming numerous civilians, produces in us neither the normal human reaction of revulsion, nausea and disgust, nor the conviction that we must take the fight to our own monstrous leaders, lest we too become monsters. Life under domestic military occupation might bring home some welcome realizations, and start Americans down the long road of atoning for the sins of their forefathers, who have run roughshod over much of the rest of the planet for far too long.''

American social; bastion; ClubOrlov; United States military.

Tue 2008-10-07 00:00 EDT

Financial Armageddon: The Real Reason for the Rush?

threat of Fed illiquidity

Financial Armageddon; real reason; rush.

Fri 2008-06-13 00:00 EDT

The REAL reasons for high gas prices | The Economic Populist

oil bubble attributed to fundamentals, falling dollar, Iraqi war

economic populist; high gas price; real reason.

Thu 2007-12-13 00:00 EST

naked capitalism: Maybe the Real Reason for the Central Bank (Especially the Fed's) Actions Wednesday

Fed auction plan; coordinated central bank actions

action Wednesday; central bank; especially; Fed S; Maybe; naked capitalism; real reason.

Wed 2007-12-05 00:00 EST

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: More Banks Abandon Paulson's Super-SIV Plan

"Is protection of Citigroup itself the only reason left for the Super-SIV?"

Banks Abandon Paulson's Super-SIV Plan; Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis.

Thu 2007-11-01 00:00 EDT

naked capitalism: Maybe the Real Reason for the SIV Rescue Plan?

MLEC to rescue Citigroup

Maybe; naked capitalism; real reason; SIV Rescue Plan.

Sat 2007-09-22 00:00 EDT

Sudden Debt: The Real Reason For The Fed's 50 bp Cut

postulates rate cut permits funding asset-backed CP rollovers to avoid dumping collateral in depressed market

Fed's 50 bp Cut; real reason; Sudden Debt.

Wed 2007-09-19 00:00 EDT

The Lies of Alan Greenspan

by William Greider; "always spot reasons to stomp on the real economy of work and production, but was utterly blind to the destructive chaos in the financial system"

Alan Greenspan; lying.

Fri 2007-09-07 00:00 EDT

Winter (Economic & Market) Watch >> 10 Reasons Why Berserkers Need Rate Cuts

Winter (Economic & Market) Watch >> 10 Reasons Why Berserkers Need Rate Cuts, by Russ Winter; "capitalist Ponzinistas"

10 Reasons; Berserkers Need Rate Cuts; economic; Market; watch; winter.

Tue 2007-08-28 00:00 EDT

naked capitalism: Extreme Measures II: Gillian Tett at the Financial Times

"parties who are in the best position to facilitate price discovery have every reason to impede that process"

Extreme Measures II; Financial Times; Gillian Tett; naked capitalism.

Thu 2007-05-03 00:00 EDT

Democracy Now! | Chalmers Johnson: "Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic"

Democracy Now! | Chalmers Johnson: Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic; "one of the reasons we had no exit plan from Iraq is that we didn't intend to leave"

American republic; Chalmers Johnson; day; Democracy; nemesis.

Wed 2005-02-09 00:00 EST

Reason: Neal Stephenson's Past,

Reason: Neal Stephensons Past, Present, and Future: The author of the widely praised Baroque Cycle on science, markets, and post-9/11 America

Neal Stephenson's; reasons.