Archive for May, 2009
The IMF as Big Banks' Debt-Collector
On the topic of the IMF and the “global financial community,” here is a nice piece from Michael Hudson; hat-tip, again to LF. The IMF Collects Debts on Behalf of the World’s Largest Banks Make Iceland Pay for Incompetent British Bank Deregulation Last month the G-20 authorized the International Monetary Fund to increase its loan ...Read more.
The Global Financial Community
An excellent article by Prabhat Patnaik on networkideas.org, the website of International Development Economics Associates, starts off with Lenin and goes on to talk about the role that the IMF and the World Bank play to create a “group of core ideologues” to exert “peer pressure” on elites to adopt a belief system that is ...Read more.
Changing the Auto Industry from the Wheels Up
We just posted a new web-only article on the auto industry, by Alejandro Reuss of the D&S collective. Here is the introduction to the article: Changing the Auto Industry from the Wheels Up The problems of the U.S. auto industry call for radical solutions. By Alejandro Reuss | Dollars & Sense | May 13, 2009 ...Read more.
Sen. Byron Dorgan: the Good and the Bad
Sen. Byron Dorgan (Dem.-N.D.) got some good press from Huffington Post a couple of days ago; turns out back in 1999 Dorgan was one of the only senators to vote against repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act (the Depression-era law that established a firewall between commercial banks, investment banks, and insurance companies): The footage of him ...Read more.
Dean Baker on Economists' 'Malpractice'
Interesting piece in the Boston Review by Dean Baker about how other countries operating their health care systems far more efficiently than the United States does. Removing protectionism in the US health care sector could unlock enormous potential gains to the U.S. economy. Baker notes that U.S. health care could be opened to global competition ...Read more.
'Geithner' on SNL
Nice critique of the stress tests, and of both Geithner and the 19 banks that took it, in this past Saturday’s SNL opener; recounted by Sudeep Reddy at the WSJ’s Real Time Economics blog: Saturday Night Live opened with Geithner (played by Will Forte) sitting behind his desk reviewing banks’ submissions for “Part 2″ of ...Read more.
Goldman Sachs Pays For Predatory Ways
Investment firm and recipient of government largess Goldman Sachs has just settled an investigation by the Attorney General of Massachusetts for $60 million that it engaged in predatory lending during the housing boom. From the NY Times: In the heyday of subprime mortgage lending, Goldman Sachs both issued mortgage-backed securities and underwrote them, too. From ...Read more.
All-Out Effort to Put Single-Payer 'On the Table'
From AfterDowningStreet and elswehere. They also had a great letter from Dr. Margaret Flowers of Physicians for a National Health Plan (reposted at Consortium News); Flowers was one of the activists who disrupted Sen. Baucus’ roundtable on May 5th to ask why single-payer proponents weren’t part of the discussion. The activists were hauled away by ...Read more.
Unjust Deserts by Gar Alperovitz and Lew Daly
REVIEW Unjust Deserts : How the Rich Are Taking Our Common Inheritance and Why We Should Take It Backby Gar Alperovitz and Lew Daly5/11/2009 Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz simultaneously invented calculus in the 1670′s. As Isaac Newton wrote, “If I have seen far, it is because I have stood on the shoulders ...Read more.
TDCotE (x): 'Life Is Beautiful' Economics
The Dull Compulsion of the Economic (x) A series of blog postings by D&S collective member Larry Peterson ‘Life Is Beautiful’ Economics and the Strange Co-option of Behavioral Economics They’re at it again: encouraged by the huge rally in equities globally (especially in emerging markets, some of which were considered doomed just a few weeks ...Read more.
