Post Tagged with: "government"
[Premium] On helicopter drops and wealth confiscation in Europe
Hugh Hendry made some remarks about confiscation last week that I addressed in my TV appearance on RT’s capital account (see video here). The gist of his comments was that he fears government’s ability to confiscate wealth as a means of dealing with the economic crisis in Europe. On RT, I said that I didn’t think the situation had reached that point in Europe and so I was not overly concerned. But I do want to flag comments by a major bank economist that touch on these issues
Video: Ron Paul vs Paul Krugman
Here is the video everyone is talking about, Ron Paul and Paul Krugman debating the economy and economic policy. Enjoy
Debts that can’t be paid, won’t be
A common denominator runs throughout recorded history: a rising proportion of debts cannot be paid. Adam Smith remarked that no government ever had repaid its debt, and today the same can be said of the overall volume of private-sector debt. One way or another, there will be defaults – unless debts are paid in an illusory fashion, simply by adding the interest charges onto the debt balance until the sums finally grow to so fictitious a magnitude that the illusion of viability has to be dropped
The Silver Anniversary of the “Keating Five” Meeting — Citizens United’s Precursor
April 9, 2012 is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the most infamous savings and loan fraud, Charles Keating’s, successful use of five U.S. Senators to escape sanction for a massive violation of the law. The Senators were Alan Cranston (D. CA), Dennis DeConcini (D. AZ), John Glenn (D OH), John McCain (R. AZ), and Donald Riegle (D. MI). They became infamous as the “Keating Five.” I was one of four regulators who attended the April 9, 1987 meeting. I took the notes of the meeting, in transcript format, that were so detailed and accurate that the Senators testified that they were sure I had tape recorded the meeting. Reviewing my (near) transcript of the April 9 offers a large number of important lessons that would have allowed us to avoid future crises
Dutch Update: Problem Unresolved, Pressure Mounts
One of our thematic points for Q2 is the increased importance of political factors for the investment climate. Dutch developments are consistent with this and the risk that the government collapses is rising
[Premium] Daily Commentary: Highest US March Gas Prices on Record
This daily commentary is a bronze level members-only post. I wonder how the oil issue is going to play out in this particular election since everyone seems to be talking about how high the price of gasoline/petrol is. In the US, we are seeing record numbers. here are some thoughts on the issue plus the links
Government’s role in the subprime crisis
Could a new paper published by researchers from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis finally answer the question of whether affordable housing laws caused the subprime crisis? Yes
Tough medicine and a hard landing for China
Michael Pettis predicts a hard landing in China. How much will growth slow? The World Bank report apparently doesn’t say, but the consensus has been slowly moving down towards 5-6% annual growth over the next few years. That’s better than the crazy numbers of 8-9% most analysts were predicting even two years ago (and some still are), but it is still too high. GDP growth rates will slow a lot more than that. I still maintain that average growth in this decade will barely break 3%. It will take, however, at least another two or three years before a number this low falls within the consensus range
The Tragedy that is Spain
The devolution in Spain is particularly troubling. The new fiscal compact had just been signed last week, which includes somewhat more rigorous fiscal rule and enforcement, when Spain’s PM Rajoy revealed that this year’s deficit would come in around 5.8% of GDP rather the 4.4% target. This of course follows last year’s 8.5% overshoot of the 6% target. The problem that for Spain is that the 4.4% target was based on forecasts for more than 2% growth this year. However, in late February, the EU cuts its forecast to a 1% contraction. This still seems optimistic. The IMF forecasts a 1.7% contraction, which the Spanish government now accepts
The Giant 21st Century Asset Grab
The financial plan is basically an asset grab. They want to load the whole economy down with debt. A consumer will come in and say, I’d like to take out a loan. They’ll say, how much do you earn? Everything over subsistence they’ll want as a loan
MMT for Austrians
We (also) do not want black helicopters flying around dropping bags of cash; and we (also) oppose government “pump-priming” demand stimulus—the libertarians and Austrians and even Milton Friedman are correct in their argument that this would generate inflation. Come to think of it, MMTers have more in common with Austerians than with “military Keynesianism” that supposes that high enough spending on the defence sector will cause full employment to “trickle down”. Most MMTers believe we’d get intolerable inflation before the jobs trickle down to Harlem. But can we “afford” full employment
The Political Economy of Artificial Constraints on Government Money
Consider the statements by the UK leadership that the UK has “run out of money.” Does anyone think that the UK financial leaders believe that statement? If Germany declared war on the UK tomorrow would the UK surrender because it had “run out of money” and could not “afford” to increase expenditures to defend the nation? The point is that nations, when faced with the need to make enormous, emergency expenditures, rediscover through necessity the knowledge of how monetary operations actually work even if they previously were captured by economic dogmas that asserted the opposit