Daily Archives: January 8, 2013

US Double-Dip Death Watch Continues

By Dan Kervick

I thought I would take a break from the latest outburst of debt ceiling mania to call attention once again to the bipartisan plan of budget austerity and recession-tempting economic devastation that will be implemented in March in one form or another, and from which the debt ceiling debate is designed to distract us.

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The Small Ball Trillion Dollar Coin Seigniorage Exception

By Joe Firestone

The exception to the general pattern focusing on the Trillion Dollar Coin (TDC) as the solution to the debt ceiling problem I outlined and critiqued in my last post, is in Joe Wiesenthal ‘s posts here and  here. Wiesenthal alone criticizes, rather than ignores, other options than the TDC, namely the $16 T and $100 T options, on grounds that they are no more effective at meeting the debt ceiling crisis than the TDC. He says that the issue is not a lack money but the debt ceiling law, and also that if a coin that large were minted and used to pay back the debt, then the result would be inflation or hyperinflation because of the flow of the large quantity of reserves into the economy, and the ensuing great expansion in the money supply. Continue reading

EU austerians rely on US stimulus to bail them out of recession

By William K. Black

The New York Times’ web version ran a story this morning (January 8, 2013) entitled “Unemployment Continues to Climb in Euro Zone.”

Eurostat reports that Eurozone unemployment has reached the record rate of 11.7%, with 18.8 million unemployed (an increase of two million in a year).  “[Y]outh unemployment continues to grow, with 5.8 million people under 25 classified as jobless in November, up 420,000 from a year earlier.”  As youth unemployment surges it becomes common for college graduates in the periphery to emigrate.  The article shows that Berlin’s insistence on inflicting austerity on Spain and Greece has forced them into Great Depression levels of unemployment.  Italy’s level of youth unemployment is also at Great Depression levels.   
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How Safe Is The New International Liquidity Agreement?

William K. Black appears on al Jazeera discussing how safe the Basel III International Liquidity agreement truly are.