Advancing the Frontiers of Heterodox Economics: Essays in Honor of Frederic S. LeeEdited by Tae-Hee Jo and Zdravka Todorova
Series in the Routledge Advances in Heterodox Economics ISBN: 978-0-415-73031-0 (hardback), 358 pages, $160. August 2015, Routledge. (20% Discount code: FLR40)
For more information visit:
http://www .taylorandfrancis.com/books/details/9780415730310
Posted in Uncategorized
Video and article over at Kansas City’s KSHB highlighting NEP’s Randy Wray’s analysis of the problems with the European Monetary Union and his predictions that it would lead to the European crisis. You can view the video and read the article here.
Comments Off on UMKC professor among handful of economist to predict Eurozone fiscal downturn
Posted in L. Randall Wray
NEP’s Bill Black appears with Richard “RJ” Eskow on the Zero Hour discussing the DOJ’s change in stance regarding prosecuting elite white collar criminals. You can view the video below.
Comments Off on If the Justice Dept Wants to Punish Corporate Crooks, Here’s How
Posted in William K. Black
By Felipe Rezende
Introduction
The creation of new sources of financing and funding are at the center of discussions to promote real capital development in Brazil. It has been suggested that access to capital markets and long-term investors are a possible solution to the dilemma faced by Brazil’s increasing financing requirements (such as infrastructure investment and mortgage lending needs) and the limited access to long-term funding in the country. Policy initiatives were implemented aimed at the development of long-term financing to lengthen the maturity of fixed income instruments (Rezende 2015a). Though average maturity has lengthened over the past 10 years and credit has soared, banks’ credit portfolios still concentrate on short maturities (with the exception of the state-owned banks including Caixa Economica Federal [CEF] and the Brazilian Development Bank [BNDES]).
Comments Off on Endogenous financial fragility in Brazil: Does Brazil’s National Development Bank reduce external fragility?
Posted in Felipe C. Rezende
Tagged Brazil
Q: I notice that the platform cites amounts of money for some of the government actions proposed and for others it is left open. Why not either leave amounts open or develop a full budget?
A: There are a few reasons for this inconsistency:
1) This document and outline is a starting place for a larger scale development of this approach. Some numbers are there to suggest magnitudes in areas where I am more confident that they will mean something.
2) I have more knowledge in some areas than in others and I am inviting others to discuss either general approaches or the details of this approach. This platform should become a team effort.
3) Some of these amounts, even if they are “right” as a starting place, will need to be adjusted over time as the policy is implemented to maximize the effectiveness of the policy.
4) I, the initiator/initial author, have been only able to devote part of my time to this effort, as I need to earn a living Continue reading
1. Popular Rule Not Big Money Rule
2. Living Wage and Full Employment
3. End Police Abuse, Discriminatory Law Enforcement and Abuse of the 2nd Amendment
4. A Real Economy not a Ponzi Wall Street Economy
5. Electrify Energy Use
6. 100% Zero-Carbon Electricity
7. Prioritize Transportation Options for Health & the Climate
8. Renewable Energy Supergrid
9. Secure Finance for Renewable Energy Generators
10. No Financial Penalty for Utilities to Go Green
11. 1,000,000 Frequent Solar-Electric Buses for the Climate Emergency
12. Safe Streets for Walking/Biking
Continue reading
Below is a provisional platform of policies, acts of Congress, Constitutional amendments or Presidential actions that would represent a serious and appropriate confrontation by US society and government with the upcoming climate catastrophe. This document is meant to start a public discussion on government actions grounded in economic, human and geophysical reality and is therefore provisional. It is divided into the following parts: Continue reading
By Felipe Rezende
In previous posts (see here and here), I discussed Standard & Poor’s (S&P) downgrade of Brazil’s long-term foreign currency sovereign credit rating to junk status, that is, to ‘BB+’ from ‘BBB-‘ and its decision to downgrade Brazil’s local currency debt to a single notch above “junk” status.
As anyone who’s followed the discussion has seen, the proposal from the newly-elected leader of the British Labor Party, Jeremy Corbyn, to implement “People’s Quantitative Easing” or PQE, has created a lot of controversy (Richard Murphy’s blog is a good place to see the PQE defense against these arguments). The basics of the proposal are that the government would create a public bank for financing infrastructure (National Investment Bank, or NIB), which the Bank of England (BoE) would then lend to directly in order to fund. The NIB would then carry out infrastructure projects to jumpstart the economy, create public capital, and create jobs.
Posted in Scott Fullwiler
Tagged deficit, MMT, Modern Monetary Theory, People’s Quantitative Easing
Felipe Rezende
So S&P has downgraded Brazil’s rating on long-term foreign currency debt to junk and lowered its long-term local currency sovereign credit rating to ‘BBB-‘ from ‘BBB+’.
First, what are sovereign debt ratings? Standard & Poor’s sovereign rating is defined as follows:
A current opinion of the creditworthiness of a sovereign government, where creditworthiness encompasses likelihood of default and credit stability (and in some cases recovery).
So that ratings are related to “a sovereign’s ability and willingness to service financial obligations to nonofficial (commercial) creditors.”
What does this tell us? To begin with, credit rating agencies have repeatedly been wrong. The same agencies that rated Enron investment grade just weeks before it went bust, the same people that assigned triple A rating to toxic subprime mortgage-backed securities are now downgrading Brazil sovereign debt. As the FCIC report pointed out “The three credit rating agencies were key enablers of the financial meltdown. The mortgage-related securities at the heart of the crisis could not have been marketed and sold without their seal of approval.” (FCIC 2011)
Click images to view details
