Yearly Archives: 2012

Today I cut out of the Wall Street Journal an article and photo that, in combination, illustrate the absurd plight we have placed ourselves in as a society by insisting that we are too poor to create the things we really need. The article is about the Pittsburgh metro area and how it is drastically reducing its public transit routes (as well as increasing fares) in order to cope with a $64 million deficit in its operating funds. The accompanying photo was of a young, bright-looking mother of two day-care aged children (the article explained) sitting at a bus stop that will soon be removed, waiting not for a ride to her job, but for a ride to a job placement agency where she spends four hours a day looking for work. When her bus route is eliminated, she won’t even be able to get to the placement agency. And this is America, the great achievement of modern civilization. I hang my head in shame.

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21 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

Resolved: Economic Democracy and Visionary Public Purpose

Posted on June 4, 2012 by Dan Kervick | 56 comments

By Dan Kervick

According to their website, the Alternative Banking Working Group is “a group of concerned citizens, activists, and financial professionals with two goals: the first is to explore and, if possible, establish alternative banking systems that might replace the current system. The second goal is to broadly understand and educate people about the current financial system, as well as come up with short and long term plans to improve it.”

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Posted in Dan Kervick, Modern Monetary Theory

Honest Mom, I only bought the new Playboy to read the article on UMKC Economics

Posted on June 4, 2012 by Mitch Green | 57 comments

By William K. Black

The UMKC economics department is featured in an article in the current Playboy that discusses the failure of theoclassical economics and economists to admit their theoretical and policy errors. The devotion of theoclassical economists to those errors has proven so dogmatic that their disastrous policies have created the ever more criminogenic environments that drive our recurrent, intensifying financial crises. Continue reading →

57 Comments

Posted in William K. Black

Tagged heterodox economics, john cochrane, paul krugman, playboy, umkc

The WSJ’s Hit Piece on Holder

Posted on June 1, 2012 by Mitch Green | 14 comments

By William K. Black

I am a fierce critic of Attorney General Eric Holder. I have long called for his resignation, and continue to do so, for his failure to investigate and prosecute the elite frauds that drove our financial crisis. So, my response to the Wall Street Journal’s editorial denouncing “Holder’s Racial Incitement” is motivated solely by the fact that the WSJ editorial is so foul and tendentious about Holder’s comments, America, and the partisan effort to deprive American citizens of one their most precious rights – the right to vote – that it compels response. Continue reading →

14 Comments

Posted in William K. Black

William K. Black on “Career Limiting Gestures”

Posted on May 31, 2012 by Mitch Green | 3 comments

3 Comments

Posted in William K. Black

Tagged career limiting gestures, fraud, S & L crisis

Sinn Fein emerges as the only Honest and Economically Literate Irish Party

Posted on May 30, 2012 by Stephanie Kelton | 8 comments

By William K. Black

I was never one of the Irish-Americans who felt that Sinn Fein and the IRA were romantic groups. Yes, some of the songs of resistance are stirring, but there is nothing romantic about the IRA’s violence for many decades. Sinn Fein’s artful ambiguity about its support for peace v. the armed struggle caused me to distrust the Party’s leaders.

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8 Comments

Posted in William K. Black

Tagged austerity, ireland, Sinn

Another One Bites the Dust: The ECB Pours Cold Water on Bankia Bailout Solution

Posted on May 30, 2012 by Mitch Green | 5 comments

By Marshall Auerback

It might seem strange to invoke Freddie Mercury and Queen in the context of the eurozone, but it’s the first thought that springs to mind, as Brussels and the increasingly hapless ECB, continue to mismanage their way to financial and economic catastrophe. Yesterday, there were signs that the Spanish plan to recapitalise Bankia (which came with the implied backing of the ECB’s balance sheet) introduced a potential way out of the eurozone’s metastisizing banking crisis. Sadly, it’s another idea which will never get off the bulletin board, as the ECB bluntly rejected any proposal to use its balance sheet to indirectly fund Bankia, the troubled Spanish lender

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5 Comments

Posted in Marshall Auerback

Tagged Bankia, ECB, euro crisis, Eurozone

Career Limiting Gestures (CLG): Trying to Speak Truth to Congress

Posted on May 30, 2012 by Mitch Green | 12 comments

By William K. Black

At the large law firm where I began my professional career we were warned about making “career limiting gestures” (CLGs). I confess to being an expert in committing CLGs, such that I am unemployable in the federal government. Continue reading →

12 Comments

Posted in William K. Black

Toward Monetary Enlightenment: An Integral Approach to Macroeconomic Policy

Posted on May 29, 2012 by Dan Kervick | 54 comments

By Dan Kervick

One staple of economic policy debate is the running conflict between those who lean toward a reliance on fiscal policy and those who lean toward a reliance on monetary policy. Continue reading →