By William K. Black
January 30, 2017 Bloomington, MN
How far have Fox “News” and the self-described “Deplorables” fallen? They rushed after a lethal terror attack on Muslims in Quebec City to declare that Muslims must have committed the attack.
“So, I retweeted the wrong pics, but I was right about the #QuebecShooters being freaking Muslims!!
Close, if the Deplorable meant by his phrase “I was right” “I was wrong.”
By William K. Black
January 26, 2017 Bloomington, MN
CalPERS was once the crown jewel of institutional investors, known for combining competence, integrity, and care. It invests funds and pays the pensions of California State workers. Over a decade ago, however, CalPERS’ senior managers and board became a cesspool that stood for the opposite. CalPERS’ corrupt culture is deeply rooted. Various California’s Treasurers have tried to clean up the mess, but the reforms have failed because few senior officers and board members have been willing to take on the rot with the forcefulness required.
I worked closely with board members in my role as the general counsel of Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco. It takes enormous courage to confront senior corporate officers or fellow-directors when they are maintaining a solid front. We had a good board, officers, and institution. In an institution with a deeply rooted, sick culture like CalPERS, everything works against forceful directors trying to cure the rot. They have to confront a phalanx of directors and officers who are genuinely horrified that someone would disturb the highly prized decorum of the boardroom. The officials maintaining that the sick culture is not sick become enraged at anyone that blows the whistle on their unwillingness to act aggressively to cure the sick culture.
By William K. Black
January 30, 2017 Bloomington, MN
The troika refers to the European Union (EU), European Central Bank (ECB), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF, traditionally, was the greatest proponent of any international entity of inflicting extreme austerity on nations suffering economic crises. The IMF’s economists have increasingly reviewed the evidence and concluded that austerity reduces growth and that putting nations into inescapable debt traps is stupid and harmful. The EU and the ECB, however, have been impervious to these economic studies and intent on hammering the Greeks. The purported EU “bailout” of Greece is an exercise in EU propaganda. Overwhelmingly, EU aid involving Greece goes to Greek banks – and the bank bailout bails out the creditors of Greek banks. Those creditors, overwhelmingly, are EU banks.
By William K. Black
January 27, 2017 Bloomington, MN
I have just listened to Lawrence O’Donnell’s program on Friday, January 27, 2017. It was a strong program, but I offer these friendly amendments on his discussion of the Washington Post story titled “Behind closed doors, Republican lawmakers fret about how to repeal Obamacare.” O’Donnell and his guests spoke exclusively of how difficult it was for the Republicans to come up with a plan to replace Obamacare and making the point that the leaked transcript of the closed Republican meeting proved that the Republicans had no plan. The thrust of the comments was that the explanation for the difficulty was the technical complexity of the issues and differences of policy views among congressional Republicans. Neither explanation is accurate. The problem is much more basic, and explains why Republicans did not use their exceptional leverage to amend the draft Affordable Care Act that would have improved it, why they have not come up with a replacement plan in seven years, and why they will not be able to come up with a replacement plan in the future.
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By William K. Black
January 30, 2017 Bloomington, MN
Maybe it is because I am part Irish, or because I am flying to Dublin this week to present at the Trinity Economic Forum, but Kellyanne Conway’s claim that though she does not “resemble” any “terrorist,” she has to go through security checks at airports, stunned me. Given her name and looks, that struck me as a bizarre statement. Surely, she must “resemble” some of the IRA terrorists. It took me four minutes of research to find an Irish terrorist that she resembles.
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By William K. Black
January 24, 2017 Bloomington, MN
Overview
This article explains three critical reasons why the Democratic Party’s leaders are far more insane than all but a few Democrats understand. It focuses on the leaders of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the New Democrats. The DNC leadership is composed of New Democrats. Debbie Wasserman Schultz had to resign in disgrace when the leaks proved that she was putting the DNC’s thumbs on the scale to favor Hillary Clinton (a New Democrat) in the presidential nomination contest against Bernie Sanders. Wasserman Schultz also took large contributions from big finance and, until she faced the prospect of a serious primary challenger, she supported efforts by predatory lenders to use Congress to bar the regulators from stopping their abuses.
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By William K. Black
January 17, 2017 Bloomington, MN
The Wall Street Journal recently published a summary of a study of “desired director traits.”
A survey of 369 supervisory directors from 12 countries by search and advisory firm Russell Reynolds Associates asked which behaviors they thought are most important to creating a board culture that drives effectiveness and company performance.
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William K. Black
January 16, 2017 Bloomington, MN
I know the Republicans are complete hypocrites about federal deficits and debt. I know their dishonesty and faux deficit and debt hysteria, when a Democrat is president, harms the Nation and the world through the infliction of self-destructive austerity. Austerity’s primary victims are the working class and government social programs for the poor and working class. That means that the Democrats should never mimic the Republicans’ dishonesty, hysteria, and willingness to inflict austerity on the people of America and the world.
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NEP’s Bill Black appears on The Real News Network. Topic of discussion is how the Legarde case reveals how power and money protect the elite. You can view the video below. If you wish to see a transcript, you can view it here.
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NEP’s Bill Black appears on The Real News Network. Topic of discussion was that none of Trump’s economic picks – which now include three people from Goldman Sachs – were picked for their knowledge of economics. Video is below. You can view the transcript here.
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