Last week we looked at the claim that MMT has ignored current account imbalances among EMU members. That turned out to be fallacious. We went on to examine the claim that the Euro crisis is a simple balance of payments problem. That, too, is fallacious. If the EMU had been designed properly, it would not … Read more
Who’s buying our democracy? Wall Street financiers, the Koch brothers, and casino magnates Sheldon Adelson and Steve Wynn. And they’re doing much of it in secret. It’s a perfect storm: The greatest concentration of wealth in more than a century — courtesy “trickle-down” economics, Reagan and Bush tax cuts, and the demise of organized labor. … Read more
The recent decision by the Portuguese constitutional court to unwind public sector salary cuts included by the government in its austerity measures has once more given rise to speculation the country may not meet it’s 4.5% deficit target for 2012. The court – which ruled the non-payment of the two traditional Christmas and Summer salary payments for the years 2012 through 2014 was unconstitutional – took … Read more
Editor’s note: Moody’s Investors Service issued the following press release in conjunction with a recent ratings action on Italian government bonds. Moody’s Investors Service has today downgraded Italy’s government bond rating to Baa2 from A3. The outlook remains negative. Italy’s Prime-2 short-term rating has not changed. The decision to downgrade Italy’s rating reflects the following … Read more
Since 2005, the “total oil supply” for the United States as reported by the Energy Information Administration increased by 2.2 million barrels per day. Of this, 1.3 mb/d, or 60%, has come from natural gas liquids and biofuels, which really shouldn’t be added to conventional crude production for purposes of calculating the available supply. Of … Read more
Just when you think that things can get no worse in Spain, they do. Take a look at this chart, courtesy of Credit Suisse via FT’s Alphaville http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2012/07/11/1080121/just-another-scary-spanish-capital-flight-chart/#comments Yiagos Alexopoulos at Credit Suisse estimates that Spanish capital outflows are currently running at an annualised rate of 50 per cent of GDP. No question, the bank … Read more
Two weeks ago I cited Paul McCulley’s claim that MMT got it right. I followed that up last week with Brad DeLong’s claim that we’re all Minskians now. Well, most of us, anyway. Is MMT on a roll? Well, maybe not, if you listen to the critics. In particular, an Italian economist, Sergio Cesaratto called … Read more
Source: Accounting Degree.net This post originally appeared at The Big Picture and is posted with permission.
After the recent Eurozone summit, Finnish politics led some observers to think that Finland might be the next to exit the Eurozone. In reality, most Finns would prefer full EZ integration. Small countries like big muscle. After the recent EZ Summit, Finnish PM Jyrki Katainen (conservative) came under fire from opposition MPs claiming that he … Read more
Just when you thought Wall Street couldn’t sink any lower – when its myriad abuses of public trust have already spread a miasma of cynicism over the entire economic system, giving birth to Tea Partiers and Occupiers and all manner of conspiracy theories; when its excesses have already wrought havoc with the lives of millions … Read more