By Michael Hudson
(Cross posted from eh.net)
David Reisman, The Social Economics of Thorstein Veblen. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2012. vii + 338 pp. $150 (hardcover), ISBN: 978-0-85793-218-1.
Reviewed for EH.Net by Michael Hudson, Department of Economics, University of Missouri – Kansas City.
Here’s the central thesis of the far right about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It is taken from the web site: The Neville Awards (as in Neville Chamberlain), which gives “awards” to Democrats for their cowardice and other mortal and venal sins. This particular article claims that the damnably clever Democrats, while the Republicans controlled the Presidency, House, Senate, Supreme Court, and all the regulatory agencies, pulled off a deliberate plan to destroy the economy in order to elect Obama. “Obama, Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac – How the Democrats Brought Down the Economy in Time to Elect Obama.”
Posted in William K. Black
Tagged Control Fraud, Financial crisis, GSE, liar loans, sub-prime loans, sub-prime mortgage crisis
During Part One of this series, I approached the end of my post with this paragraph.
Apart from the political opposition from the insurance companies that Medicare for All would have engendered, I think the main justification for abandoning Medicare for All and switching to the PO and eventually the PO-less ACA, was actually neoliberalism. The President, his main advisers, the Democratic leaders in Congress, and most progressives working for Washington progressive organizations were steeped in neoliberal doctrine. They viewed the Bush tax cuts and the two Wars as unpaid for. The ARRA stimulus Act was similarly unpaid for and added to deficit spending and to the debt-subject-to-the-limit. They believed and most believe today that the Federal Government can have solvency problems if the debt-to-GDP ratio increases too much, and interest rates on the national debt are driven up by the bond vigilantes.
By William K. Black
(Cross posted at Benzinga.com)
Two years ago, I wrote an article entitled “The Bank of England Sows the Seeds of the Next UK Crisis.”
I was not vain enough to believe that the British establishment would listen to my critique. The books authored recently by Jeff Connaughton, Neil Barofsky, and Sheila Bair have made clear that the dominant strategy of the Bush and Obama administrations has been providing aid and comfort to the banksters who drove the crisis rather than holding them accountable for their crimes. The Brits are following the same dominant strategy.
Posted in William K. Black
Tagged accounting control fraud, bank regulation, banksters, Control Fraud, criminogenic
Jeff Connaughton has just authored a major insider account revealing and explaining the failure of the politicians and regulators to hold the banksters who drove the financial crisis accountable and to remove the most obvious risks of future crises. On Sunday, October 21, 2012, UMKC’s Bill Black hosted a book salon on Firedoglake with Jeff Connaughton. With Connaughton’s permission, we are cross-posting his introductory post (which explains how he came to write the book) and Bill Black’s review of his book.
Posted in William K. Black
Tagged banksters, Financial crisis, Jeff Connaughton, The Payoff
We have been able to find the details of Romney’s $5 Trillion tax plan. The details are available by clicking here.
Posted in Uncategorized
By Thornton “Tip” Parker
Nearly everyone believes that Uncle Sam is like a family that must get money before it can spend. But that is not true. A basic function of any sovereign government is to create and run the country’s money system. Unlike a family, the US government is sovereign. It creates money and can never run out. All the words about America’s financial limits mean nothing.
Presentation by Warren Mosler and Stephanie Kelton. Presented at Columbia Law School on September 25, 2012 as part of the Modern Money and Public Purpose series.
Posted in Stephanie Kelton, warren mosler
Tagged debt, deficits, Modern Money and Public Purpose
During the run-up to passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), I wrote a number of posts here, here, and here assessing the ACA very negatively, and pointing out the shortcomings of the various versions of this bill, preceding its final passage. My focus was on contrasting varying versions with HR 676, the Conyers-Kucinich Medicare for All bill, in relation to its likely impact on fatalities, bankruptcies and divorces attributed to lack of health insurance coverage in the US.
Posted in Joe Firestone
Tagged budget deficits, debt burden, MMT, modern money theory, paul krugman, trade deficits
Richard Wilkinson’s TED presentation.
Posted in Uncategorized
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