Author Archives: Devin Smith

The Black Financial and Fraud Report: Agency Says No to Mortgage Relief

Posted on August 2, 2012 | 4 comments

By William K. Black

The latest installment:

Via therealnews.com

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Thomas Palley Conflates the Conservative Party in the UK with UMKC

Posted on August 1, 2012 | 4 comments

By William K. Black

Thomas Palley argues that the UK Conservative Party’s plan to abuse the unemployed “confirms” the accuracy of his opposition to MMT theorists’ employer of last resort/job guarantee (ELR/JG) proposals.  His logical chain is as follows.

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Why Don’t People Want Full Employment? Michal Kalecki’s 1943 Essay on Politics and Ideology

Posted on August 1, 2012 | 25 comments

By Michal Kalecki*

I

1. A solid majority of economists is now of the opinion that, even in a capitalist system, full employment may be secured by a government spending programme, provided there is in existence adequate plan to employ all existing labour power, and provided adequate supplies of necessary foreign raw-materials may be obtained in exchange for exports.

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Charles Murray: Panderer to Fraudulent Plutocrats

Posted on July 31, 2012 | 10 comments

By William K. Black

Murray’s Divine Rights of Plutocrats

Charles Murray believes that the wealthiest person should be made President of the United States.  “Who better to be president of the greatest of all capitalist nations than a man who got rich by being a brilliant capitalist?”

If the standard is wealth makes right, then the wealthier the person, the more appropriate that he should be made President.  There is no need for elections or fixed terms of office under this standard of political governance.  Whoever tops the Forbes list becomes President – that will create the appropriate competitive incentives.  Wealth being the full measure of a man there is no need for that the wealthiest person to be a U.S. citizen.  Under the Murray governance standard Mitt Romney’s problem is that he is not wealthy enough to be our ruler.  Carlos Slim can run all of North America south of Canada.

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Neoliberal Supply Side versus Keynesian Demand Side Approaches to Unemployment

Posted on July 30, 2012 | 64 comments

By L. Randall Wray

Excellent piece up by Bill Mitchell on the Neoliberal “work for the dole” scheme (called the Community Action Programme). Neoliberals first throw millions of workers out of their jobs with fiscal austerity. (Note: the UK is monetarily sovereign, so this is a policy choice–there is no economic necessity to adopt austerity.) Next, they tell those who lost their jobs that if they want to collect the unemployment benefits to which they are entitled, they’ve got to work for the dole–for much less than the minimum wage.

Tom Palley calls this British ELR.

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The War against the Regulatory Cops on the Bank Beat

Posted on July 30, 2012 | 4 comments

By William K. Black

Will no one rid me of the accursed examiners?

The Wall Street Journal has long led the struggle against freer more efficient markets.  Whatever its rhetoric, its policies favor crony capitalism.  The latest example is the July 23, 2012 article:  by Francesco Guerrera entitled “Too Many Cops on the Bank Beat.”

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Nostradamus and the Euro

Posted on July 29, 2012 | 12 comments

L. Randall Wray

Let’s end the debate about who was first to predict the Euro disaster: Nostradamus.

When I was in high school we discovered Nostradamus while goofing around in the library. Man, that guy was prescient!  The book included commentary that showed he had foreseen Hueys dropping Napalm on villages in South Vietnam (an issue of the day). After leaving the library I found the book in my bag—and it became a running prank that Nostradamus would show up in lockers and cars, or on desks and occasionally even in mailboxes. I’m not sure where the book ended up—not with me, as I’d be checking it for his predictions on the Euro crisis. But I’m sure it is there in gory detail.

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“Whatever it Takes” – How Far is the ECB Really Prepared to go to Save the Euro?

Posted on July 29, 2012 | 3 comments

By Marshall Auerback

Re-reading Mr Draghi’s market-moving remarks last Thursday, one gains a sense that the European Central Bank chief recognizes that the ECB has a banking run on their hand. Most market participants have understandably focused on Mr Draghi’s pledge that the ECB was “ready to do whatever it takes” to preserve the single currency. “Believe me, it will be enough,” he told a conference in London.

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The Right’s Schadenfreude as their Austerity Policies Devastate Europe

Posted on July 27, 2012 | 10 comments

By William K. Black

This column was prompted in part by reading RJ Eskow’s column, which alerted me to Anne Applebaum’s September 13, 2010 column celebrating Britain’s embrace of austerity and the Conservative Party.

I was already planning a piece responding to Applebaum’s Washington Post column about the consequences of European austerity published on July 25, 2012 (her birthday) and the contrast to a Wall Street Journal news story that same day announcing that austerity had, as we predicted, thrown Britain back into recession when I read Eskow’s column.

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Appearance on Air Occupy radio 7/24/12

Posted on July 24, 2012 | 2 comments

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