Tag Archives: nyt

The ECB and the NYT’s Obsession with Talking about Deflation

Posted on December 5, 2014 by William Black | Comments Off

By William K. Black
Kansas City, MO: December 4, 2014

In the last two days, the New York Times’ website has published a blizzard of six article about deflation, several of them focusing on the European Central Bank (ECB). Collectively, these article mention the word “deflation” seven times and the word “inflation” 75 times. Collectively, the same articles contain the word “unemployment” 10 times and the word “unemployed” zero times. “Unemployment” is the word one uses to provide a statistic. “Unemployed” is the word one uses to discuss who is harmed and how they are harmed because they lose their ability to find a job.

The word “demand” is used only twice and both usages are in the context of oil prices rather than the eurozone’s grossly inadequate demand that already inflicted a second, gratuitous Great Recession and threatens to cause a third. The word “austerity” – the form of economic malpractice akin to bleeding a patient to make him healthy – is mentioned only twice and solely in the article on the Bank of England.

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Tagged deflation, ECB, mario draghi, nyt

The NYT Thinks Jailing the Banksters Would Cause a “Bind

Posted on November 25, 2014 by William Black | 5 comments

By William K. Black
San Francisco California: November 24, 2014

Peter Henning, in his self-bowdlerized Dealbook feature he branded as “White Collar Watch” (note his deletion of the word “crime”) has come up with an article that illustrates that the New York Times is clueless about bank regulation. The good news is that once the fundamental error in their understanding of banking regulation is corrected the supposed dilemma that the Henning claims has placed the NY Fed in a terrible “bind” disappears. The title of Henning’s November 24, 2011 article has morphed during the course of the day into “Fed’s New ‘Cop on the Beat’ Role Put it in a Bind.” The title exemplifies three fundamental errors. First, the role of federal financial regulators as “regulatory cop on the beat” is not “new.” It has always been our paramount role as financial regulators. Second, Henning’s columns was prompted by William Dudley, the NY Fed’s President’s testimony before a Senate banking committee subcommittee in which he expressly refused to function as the “cop on the beat” our Nation vitally needs. Third, were Dudley to embrace the role of “cop on the beat” and perform it properly he and our Nation would escape the desperate “bind” we are in – not create a “bind.” Henning’s article tries to support the three errors encapsulated in his title in the reverse order, which I will track.

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Tagged banksters, jail the banksters, nyt, NYT Deal Book

How NPR Was Conned by Geithner into Censoring My Criticisms

Posted on November 23, 2014 by William Black | 10 comments

By William K. Black
San Francisco, CA: November 23, 2014

In December 2013 NPR interviewed me about one the great disgraces of the Obama administration – its refusal to prosecute either the officers or HSBC for laundering roughly $1 billion over the course of the decade for Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel. The NPR story doesn’t name the cartel or inform the listener that it is one of the world’s most violent drug cartels, or that HSBC also routinely violated the money laundering laws on transactions involving tens of trillions of dollars, and covered up its numerous violations of U.S. sanctions on Iran and Burma.

The original NPR story presented my comments on Treasury’s opposition to brining criminal charges. Those comments were subject to what NPR labeled a “clarification” which meant they were removed from the program.

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Posted in William K. Black

Tagged banksters, npr, nyt, Timothy Geithner

Note to Dudley: Everyone Questions the NY Fed’s Motives – For Good Reasons

Posted on November 20, 2014 by William Black | 4 comments

By William K. Black
San Francisco, CA: November 20, 2014

The NY Fed and Goldman have combined again to produce fingers scraping on a moral blackboard. The story is – not – told coherently in a NY Times piece.

I’ll comment on only two aspects of the incoherent story. First, contrary to the NYT portrayal of the story, there is typically no ambiguity about whether regulatory information is confidential and there was no ambiguity about the particular information that we read (albeit, not in the NYT) that the NY Fed employee leaked to his former colleague after he joined Goldman Sachs.

Second, the NY Fed’s head, William Dudley’s, response to the latest scandal was “I don’t think anyone should question our motives.” I will argue that given the NY Fed’s intolerable institutional conflicts of interest, and the defense of continuing that conflict by the NY Fed’s leadership, e.g., Dudley, everyone should the regional Feds’ motives.

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Posted in William K. Black

Tagged banksters, goldman sachs, NY fed, nyt

The Euphemistic “White Collar Watch” is Addicted to Euphemism

Posted on November 8, 2014 by William Black | 3 comments

By William K. Black
Kilkenny, Ireland: November 7, 2014

Kilkenomics pairs top professional comedians with economics contributors who share two characteristics: wide-ranging interests and knowledge and candor. This means that the contributors take clear positions and defend those positions with facts and logic. That refreshing willingness to actually be blunt about important things may be what set my teeth so on edge when I read the New York Times’ “White Collar Watch” feature. It is written by Peter J. Henning, who teaches, and writes about, white-collar crime. The problem is evident in the “brand” that Henning has chosen for his columns. Note the deliberate exclusion of the word “crime.” What is Henning doing – writing a column (from Detroit) on the lives of “white-collar” employees, professionals, and officers? His very brand is based on the bowdlerization of his academic specialty through euphemism.

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Posted in William K. Black

Tagged DOJ, nyt, white collar crime

The New York Times Claims Democratic Leaders in Latin America are “Military Dictators”

Posted on October 28, 2014 by William Black | 5 comments

By William K. Black

The NYT wrote an extraordinarily arrogant, insulting, dishonest, and hypocritical editorial attacking a series of Latin American democracies. The editorial manages to insult their democratically elected representatives and their electorates. The title of the editorial is “South America’s New Caudillos.” The editorial does not bother to define the word. Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines caudillo as “a Latin American military dictator.”

The editorial claims that it was prompted by the democratic reelection of Evo Morales as President of Bolivia. The editorial concedes that he was reelected in a well-deserved, democratic “landslide.”

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Tagged latin america, nyt

The New York Times Finally Allows Competent EU Commentators

Posted on October 25, 2014 by William Black | 3 comments

By William K. Black

As my regular readers know, the NYT coverage of the EU financial crisis has been shameful, economically illiterate, and harmful. In the last two weeks, however, that coverage has finally begun to mention the concept of inadequate demand, the fact that governmental spending can provide demand, and that austerity is not the only available choice. In the last 10 days the coverage even began to quote economists who made the point that austerity is the problem rather than the solution. This modest improvement has taken six years, two gratuitous Great Recessions, and Great Depressions for about one-third the eurozone’s population.

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Posted in William K. Black

Tagged Austerians, austerity, nyt

The New York Times Admits that “Many Economists” Criticize EU Austerity

Posted on October 3, 2014 by William Black | 1 comment

By William K. Black

Under the principle that one should bestow a special welcome on the tentative steps that the prodigal daughter takes to return to economic reality I write to praise Liz Alderman’s column entitled “France Produces a “No Austerity’ Budget, Defying E.U. Rules.” The column contains a sentence that represents a breakthrough in the New York Times’ horrific (non) coverage of Eurozone austerity, its abject failure, its self-destructive nature, and its victims.

“But many economists believe that crimping spending during a downturn has impeded economic growth, which in turn has made it harder for those countries to reduce their deficits and debts.”

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Posted in William K. Black

Tagged Austerians, austerity, eu, Eurozone, nyt

The New York Times’ Thinks the EU Can “Afford” Mass Unemployment but Not “More Government Spending”

Posted on October 2, 2014 by William Black | 6 comments

By William K. Black

Regular readers understand the three dynamics that drive economists crazy about the New York Times’ coverage of the troika’s infliction of austerity on the Eurozone. The troika consists of the European Central Bank (ECB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the European Commission (EC).

NYT reporters treat austerity as a response to the eurozone’s Great Recession as obviously the only possible response – they rarely discuss alternative policies or views
The NYT refuses to inform its readers that economists overwhelmingly consider this malpractice and that it has caused catastrophic and gratuitous harm
All of this is particularly bizarre given the NYT’s economist, the Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, who writes regularly in the paper to explain why austerity is a disastrous response to the Great Recession. The NYT eurozone writers routinely ignore Krugman (and anyone else who makes the same point).

The massive, wholly avoidable harm caused by “bleeding the patient” to make him well (austerity in response to a recession) for the people of the eurozone is stark, but typically minimized or wholly ignored by the NYT reporters. Roughly one-third of the population of the eurozone lives in nations with Great Depression levels of unemployment.

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Posted in William K. Black

Tagged Austerians, austerity, nyt, unemployment

Rising Tides Lift All Yachts: Why the 1% Grabs all the Gains From Growth

Posted on October 1, 2014 by L. Randall Wray | 16 comments

By L. Randall Wray

You’ve probably seen references to the work of my colleague (and former student), Pavlina Tcherneva in recent days. If not, take a gander at this:

The NYT article includes links to her published article in the Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, the first issue edited by me and my Levy Institute colleague Jan Kregel. Pavlina also presented her results at the just finished International Post Keynesian Conference at UMKC. We’ll soon have a website up with many of the powerpoints and papers. The next conference will be held in 2016. Mark your calendars.

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