Sunday, January 31, 2016

Sputnik — Biden: US Middle Class Not Wealthiest Globally for First Time in 100 Years

According to an October 2015 report released by Credit Suisse Bank, China's middle-class, estimated to include 109 million adults, has surpassed the US middle-class and became the largest in the world.
Sputnik
Biden: US Middle Class Not Wealthiest Globally for First Time in 100 Years

Prediction Markets update


Election Betting Odds

Predict It

Predictwise

Iowa Electronic Markets

Josh Rogin — The Trump Doctrine Revealed

“One, we want to take a very clear worldview in our foreign policy, dealing with the national interest, and let that be our organizing principles. Two is that we want to make sure that we engage in free markets, but we want those markets to be fairer as well. And three, if we do not have strong economic recovery, we can’t do the other two,” said Clovis. “If that’s not a Trump doctrine, I don’t know what is.”
Bloomberg View
The Trump Doctrine Revealed
Josh Rogin

Constantin Gurdgiev — China Manufacturing PMI: It's at Recession Levels, Folks

China manufacturing PMI signalled another month of deterioration in operating conditions for January 2016. Per Markit, “with both output and employment declining at slightly faster rates than in December. Total new business meanwhile fell at the weakest rate in seven months, and despite a faster decline in new export work.’
Overall, PMI index came in tat 48.4 in January, marginally up on 48.2 in December 2015, marking 11th consecutive month of sub-50 readings. 3mo average through January 2016 is now at 48.4 against 3mo average through October 2015 at 47.6. Current 3mo average is down significantly on 49.8 3mo average through January 2015. Last time Chinese Manufacturing posted statistically significant expansion (as measured by PMI reading above 51.46 - the statistically significant growth marker - was back in July 2014….
True Economics
China Manufacturing PMI: It's at Recession Levels, Folks
Constantin Gurdgiev

Latest issue of my Fiscal Trend Trader report is out

Some pretty eye opening stuff in this issue. See where markets are headed. All the analysis from the Daily Treasury Statement and more.

Subscribe or get a sample copy here.

Latest from Jeb


???????

#LOOOOOOOZZZERRRRR



Frances Coppola — Japan's negative rates: the China connection


There's more to Japan's negative interest rate policy than meets the eye.

The race to the bottom is on.

Coppola Comment
Japan's negative rates: the China connection
Frances Coppola

Jason Smith — What is and isn't economics?

It's probably hubris for a physicist to say what is or isn't economics, but I'll have a go anyway.
Information Transfer Economics
What is and isn't economics?
Jason Smith

David Sloan Wilson — The Search for a Better Economics. Part II of My Journey


David Sloan Wilson meets Elinor Ostrom. Elinor Ostrom has the unique distinction of being awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel although she was not an economist.
The reaction to Elinor Ostrom as the recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in economics (along with Oliver Williamson, who also studies how decisions are made outside markets) spoke volumes about the field of economics.… 
Evonomics
The Search for a Better Economics. Part II of My Journey
David Sloan Wilson | SUNY Distinguished Professor of Biology and Anthropology at Binghamton University and Arne Næss Chair in Global Justice and the Environment at the University of Oslo

Carl Bildt — The Angry Quarter


Another neoliberal apparatchik that doesn't get the paradoxes of liberalism and the dialectical course of history. In addition, he can't add.

Project Syndicate
The Angry Quarter
Carl Bildt
Carl Bildt was Sweden’s foreign minister from 2006 to October 2014 and Prime Minister from 1991 to 1994, when he negotiated Sweden’s EU accession. A renowned international diplomat, he served as EU Special Envoy to the Former Yugoslavia, High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, UN Special Envoy to the Balkans, and Co-Chairman of the Dayton Peace Conference. He is Chair of the Global Commission on Internet Governance and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Europe

Andrew Sheng and Xiao Geng — China’s Transparency Problem


China wrestles with the impossible trinity of a fixed exchange rate, sovereign policy, and free capital flow.

If the Chinese are smart, they will just say that the speculative pressure of US "capitalists" is forcing their hand and although they were aiming at a smooth transition, facts of the ground compel them to float the currency. Then let the ROW compete with a floating RMB and see how the free marketers like that. Prediction — they would be squealing.

Project Syndicate
China’s Transparency Problem
Andrew Sheng, Distinguished Fellow of the Asia Global Institute at the University of Hong Kong and a member of the UNEP Advisory Council on Sustainable Finance, former chairman of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, and currently an adjunct professor at Tsinghua University; and Xiao Geng, Director of the IFF Institute, professor at the University of Hong Kong, and a fellow at its Asia Global Institute

Juliet Chung and Carolyn Cui — Hedge Funds Versus Nascent (Communist) Superpower

Some of the biggest names in the hedge-fund industry are piling up bets against China’s currency, setting up a showdown between Wall Street and the leaders of the world’s second-largest economy.
Kyle Bass’s Hayman Capital Management has sold off the bulk of its investments in stocks, commodities and bonds so it can focus on shorting Asian currencies, including the yuan and the Hong Kong dollar.
It is the biggest concentrated wager that the Dallas-based firm has made since its profitable bet years ago against the U.S. housing market. About 85% of Hayman Capital’s portfolio is now invested in trades that are expected to pay off if the yuan and Hong Kong dollar depreciate over the next three years—a bet with billions of dollars on the line, including borrowed money.… 
Across the Curve
Hedge Funds Versus Nascent (Communist) Superpower
Via the WSJ:
By Juliet Chung and Carolyn Cui

Asad Zaman — Fundamental Flaws of Conventional Economics

My recent post on RWER Blog asks if there is a “CORE of heterodox economics” which we can all believe in? From the responses to my previous post on whether or not there was a core set of heterodox beliefs, it became clear to me that I have started in the wrong place. Before starting the task of constructing an alternative paradigm, we must clear away the debris of the ruins of the conventional paradigm. Frederic Lee & Steve Keen remarked in the introduction to their article on the “The incoherent emperor: a heterodox critique of neoclassical microeconomic theory” that heterodox economists often come to the defense of conventional economics, because they are ignorant of the vast range of devastating critiques against these theories. To create a revolution, we must change from lukewarm heterodoxy (a partial rejection combined with a partial acceptance of the errors of conventional theories) to a genuinely radical approach requiring a complete rejection. When the errors of the conventional approach become as obvious as the error in “2+2=5”. we will not waste time coming up with new proofs that this is a fallacious calculation.
I would like to put forth a few propositions which provide a clear demonstration of the errors of conventional economic theory. I am hoping that disagreements about these central propositions can be cleared away by discussion, so that we can create consensus about complete rejection of conventional economic theories. After this step is completed, we could move forward to thinking about how to construct alternative foundations.…
Real-World Economics Review Blog
Fundamental Flaws of Conventional Economics
Asad Zaman

The Arthurian — How does this work out on a balance sheet?


Oh my.

The New Arthurian
How does this work out on a balance sheet?
The Arthurian

Peter Turchin — Science versus Ideology: Readers Comment on Ultrasociety

It’s amazing how the landscape of book publishing has been transformed in the last ten (or even five) years. Not only it’s now possible for authors to reach readers directly, as I did with Ultrasociety, without the intermediaries of literary agents, publishers, and printers, but the reverse communication channel is also wide open. And fast—I started getting feedback from readers within a week of publication.….
Cliodynamica — A Blog about the Evolution of Civilizations
Science versus Ideology: Readers Comment on Ultrasociety
Peter Turchin | Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut, Research Associate in the School of Anthropology, University of Oxford, and Vice-President of the Evolution Institute

Diane Coyle — What should the well-educated student read?

My interest was caught by this Quartz article about a new database of the set texts at top US colleges, revealing which texts are the most-frequently set for different universities and subjects.…
What ten books would you absolutely want a young person to read – whatever their subject – to be well-rounded? The idea is a kind of summer reading list for someone about to go to university – what kind of broad mental hinterland should they have before arriving to start a social science degree?…
The Enlightened Economist
What should the well-educated student read?
Diane Coyle | freelance economist and a former advisor to the UK Treasury. She is a member of the UK Competition Commission and is acting Chairman of the BBC Trust, the governing body of the British Broadcasting Corporation

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke — Economists cannot do the simple math of profit — better keep them out of politics

This gives one the most elementary version of the profit law: profit is positive if the households dissave (increase debt/decrease financial assets) and negative if the households save. So profit for the economy as a whole has nothing to do with productivity, the wage rate, or risk or any other of the usual explanations which stem from the observation of a single firm. In fact, exactly here is where error/mistake comes in because what is true for a single firm is not true for the economy as a whole. This logical blunder is well-known as fallacy of composition.…
AXEC: New Foundations of Economics

See also

Philosophical Economics
The [Kalecki-Levy] Corporate Profit Equation Derived, Explained, Tested: 1929-2013

The rent was too damn high


Ok oil is about $30/bbl these days having been as high as probably $150 or so over the last years.  The oil market is a monopoly with OPEC out there and this cartel organization works to fix the price of oil and when they are successful, they are able to extract monopoly rent in the marketplace.

Tom has been banging the table on this concept of rent for years here and I have to admit I never really understood it. I thought it was some sort of lefty/Marxist BS or whatever and put it on the back burner.

But in the last month or two I think I am finally coming around to understand what this concept is or means as the oil price has collapsed and yet the marketplace is still being supplied as if nothing real happened due to this collapsing of the price.

Can the magnitude of the rents previously extracted by the oil people be estimated in numismatic terms? Here is a quick shot:

Global use of oil is 85Mbpd.  Let's say $100 of monopoly rent has been removed down here at $30/bbl.  Ok that is 85M x $100 x 365 days = $3,102,500,000 or $3.1T USD per year (flow) of payments made for essentially no productive contribution to the global economy as manifestly the oil is still flowing down here at $30.

For perspective that is equivalent to 75% of ALL leading USD flow withdrawn from the US Treasury's account.  Or in labor terms lets say a global wage of $25/hr that would be 124 billion man-hours at 2,000 man-hours per year that would represent 62 million people working full time 40 hours per week for a year.

So somewhere, 62 million people have literally been getting a free ride for like the last 8 years or so.  I think I know where most of these perhaps irreparably damaged people are and are leaving now that the free ride is over.



Saturday, January 30, 2016

Nils Herger and Steve McCorriston — FDI ‘waves’ and cross-border acquisitions

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has grown markedly in the world economy since the 1970s. However, the underlying growth has occasionally been punctuated by relatively short-lived reductions in FDI, giving rise to the ‘wave-like’ pattern exhibited in Figure 1. In explaining the motives driving FDI, economists have typically distinguished between horizontal and vertical strategies, the former being driven by market-seeking considerations, and the latter by the desire to access inputs such as cheap labour. Understanding the different motives of FDI is important for addressing policy issues, identifying how FDI and international trade are potentially related, as well as assessing the spillovers that might be associated with FDI. Yet, attempts to uncover the distribution of the different FDI strategies have long been hindered by access to suitable data....
Vox.eu
FDI ‘waves’ and cross-border acquisitions
Nils Herger and Steve McCorriston

David F. Ruccio — Liberal ideology

I know what liberal ideology in economics is all about. I’ve encountered it at every turn, even before I began my formal studies in economics. The same is true about liberal ideology in politics, which has shown its ugly face once again in the current electoral campaign.
In both cases, liberal ideology is the based on the idea that the existing system, while perhaps imperfect, is the only game in town. It is a conception both of what is and of how change can and should take place—gradually and without major disruption. According to liberals, the biggest threat is populism, when the masses of people challenge the existing common sense and seek radical change. It therefore works with conservative ideology, as two bookends of mainstream discourse, to limit the theoretical and policy debate to a narrow set of options.…
Occasional Links & Commentary
Liberal ideology
David F. Ruccio | Professor of Economics, University of Notre Dame

Another Trump Endorsement


Can't make it up...


Merkel says refugees must return home


The sexual assaults on women are one thing, but the masturbating in the hot-tubs and shitting in the pool must have been the last straw for the EZ elites.

Support for her conservative bloc has slipped as concerns mount about how Germany will integrate the 1.1 million migrants who arrived last year, while crime and security are also in the spotlight after a wave of assaults on women in Cologne at New Year by men of north African and Arab appearance. 
The influx has played into the hands of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), whose support is now in the double digits, and whose leader was quoted on Saturday saying that migrants entering illegally should, if necessary, be shot.





William K. Black — Announcing the Bank Whistleblowers United Initial Initiatives

I am writing to announce the formation of a new pro bono group and a policy initiative that we hope many of our readers will support and help publicize. Gary Aguirre, Bill Black, Richard Bowen, and Michael Winston are the founding members of the Bank Whistleblowers United. We are all from the general field of finance and we are all whistleblowers who are unemployable in finance and financial regulation because we spoke truth to power and committed the one unforgivable sin in finance and in Washington, D.C. – being repeatedly proved correct when the powerful are repeatedly proved wrong.… 
New Economic Perspectives
Announcing the Bank Whistleblowers United Initial Initiatives

An Explanation of the Bank Whistleblowers United 60-Day Plan
William K. Black | Associate Professor of Economics and Law, UMKC

Eric Tymoigne — Money and Banking Blog – Part 4


Next installment in the series.

New Economic Perspectives
Money and Banking Blog – Part 4
Eric Tymoigne | Associate Professor of Economics at Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon; and Research Associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College

Philip S. Golub — China rewrites the global rules

Recognising the challenge, the US intensively lobbied allied states in Asia and Europe to stay out of the AIIB, arguing that it would not meet IMF and World Bank standards of transparency, environmental and social responsibility, and democratic governance. The argument would have been more convincing had the IMF not been the arm of coercive Euro-Atlantic discipline for the South. With the exception of Japan, the US proved unable to sway its closest partners.… 
The decision to found the NDB and AIIB is the outcome of a movement building since the 1990s in East Asia and Latin America in reaction to IMF mismanagement of regional financial crises. The 1997-8 Asian crisis convinced many East Asian policy makers that it was time to take the future into their own hands and seek greater autonomy. The creation of the new system has huge implications: the ability to set policy frameworks and maintain international regimes through multilateral institutions is an essential dimension of power in world politics. Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers wrote that October 2014 (when the AIIB was formed) “may be remembered as the moment the United States lost its role as the underwriter of the global economic system….
Multipolar geopolitical political systems based on national sovereignty are potentially much less stable than unipolar systems, but only if the unipolar system is run in the interest of all instead of a hegemon. The US blew this opportunity badly. Now the future is uncertain as power blocs and spheres of interest again form.

Le Monde Diplomatique — English
China rewrites the global rules
Philip S. Golub
ht Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism

Brad DeLong — Must-Read: Andrew Gelman and Cosma Rohilla Shalizi: Philosophy and the practice of Bayesian statistics


Assuming the conclusion and curve-fitting.

WCEG
Must-Read: Andrew Gelman and Cosma Rohilla Shalizi: Philosophy and the practice of Bayesian statistics
Brad DeLong

Don Quijones — Clinton Emails: NATO Destroyed Libya to Prevent African Gold-Backed Currency


This was reported here at MNE previously, but it's worth bringing up again.

Raging Bull-Shit
Clinton Emails: NATO Destroyed Libya to Prevent African Gold-Backed Currency
Don Quijones

Microsoft Earnings Growth Solid


Nice quarter at Microsoft.  Much less oil monopoly rent paid YoY allows more to be spent on productivity software even with breakeven+ leading USD flow.
Profit 2014: $5.8 billion 2015: $6.3 billion, up 8% Microsoft's adjusted profit (including deferrals), soared, thanks in large part to growing cloud sales.



Factory Lettuce


Morons: "We're running out of food!!!!!"



Friday, January 29, 2016

Alexander Mercouris — In Upbeat Mood, Putin Reviews the Economy with his Team


More upside in the ruble than downside? Mercouris thinks so.
In the past I have speculated that the point when the rouble will start to decouple from oil prices will be when the total foreign debt that is actually due falls below the amount of Russia’s foreign exchange reserves held by the Central Bank (currently roughly $370 billion).

All the evidence suggests that that point is fast approaching, and if is true that only half of the nominal amount of $515 billion of foreign debt is debt that is actually due, then that point may already have been passed - even it is not yet visible in the published figures.

Given that that is so, since it is very much in Russia’s interests to keep the rouble low in line with oil prices - to choke off imports to support to agriculture and industry and to keep the external trade balance in surplus at a time of low oil prices - I have come round to Jon Hellevig’s view that the Central Bank should cut interest rates without further delay.
Inflation is falling fast and - as Jon Hellevig says - in Russia it is not primarily a monetary phenomenon anyway.

Since inflation is falling fast and since there is no need to support the rouble - on the contrary an excessive rise in the rouble like the one last spring would actually do harm - there is no reason to keep interest rates high. All the high interest rates are now doing is prolonging the recession.
Unfortunately, if recent history is a guide, the Central Bank will once again err on the side of caution, and - spooked by the recent fall in the rouble and worries about further interest rate rises in the US - will decide to keep interest rates high at its next scheduled meeting at the end of January.
The day when interest rates are cut cannot however now be far off. Beyond a certain point not just economic logic but political pressure from business, the Duma and the government will make an interest rate cut inevitable.
Russia Insider
In Upbeat Mood, Putin Reviews the Economy with his Team
Alexander Mercouris

David Sloan Wilson — My Journey to Economic Mordor, and the Woman Who Saved Us

The more I learned about economics, the more I discovered a landscape that is surpassingly strange. Like the land of Mordor, it is dominated by a single theoretical edifice that arose like a volcano early in the 20th century and still dominates the landscape. The edifice is based upon a conception of human nature that is profoundly false, defying the dictates of common sense, before we even get to the more refined dictates of psychology and evolutionary theory. Yet, efforts to move the theory in the direction of common sense are stubbornly resisted.
There is plenty of dissent among economists, and some of the best are working the hardest for change. The folks who award the Nobel Prize in economics don’t like the edifice that much either, and often add their weight by awarding the prize to the contrarians. Yet, even with all that talent, effort, and the prestige associated with the Nobel Prize, the edifice remains standing in one spot like a volcano adding to its own height and spewing out toxic policies. Why does it resist change? One reason is ideological, as we shall see, but another reason involves path dependence. Neoclassical economics provides an outstanding example of the “you can’t get there from here” principle in academic cultural evolution. It will never move if we try to change it incrementally. It must be replaced wholesale with a more realistic conception of human nature.…
Evonomics
My Journey to Economic Mordor, and the Woman Who Saved Us
David Sloan Wilson | SUNY Distinguished Professor of Biology and Anthropology at Binghamton University and Arne Næss Chair in Global Justice and the Environment at the University of Oslo

Steve Roth — Why Economists Ignore Much of Rich People’s Income

The standard definition of income makes much of rich people’s income invisible.

If your home or stock-portfolio value goes up over a decade or three, have you received “income”? It sure as heck feels like income. It increases your asset holdings and net worth. It’s new money in your pocket that you can spend now and in your retirement.
Maybe you have to sell things or borrow against them. Whatever.) How is that not income?
But in economics — actually right down to the core of national accounting methods — capital gains aren’t counted as income. And they don’t contribute to “saving.” Those gains are completely invisible to a huge bulk of the economics work (both empirical and theoretical) that is built on income and saving concepts and measures.
Even Piketty and company, who importantly include capital gains income in their income data, don’t include it in their theorizing about income and saving. Ditto most Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) work, despite (or because of?) that group’s rigorous accounting-based approach.…
Evonomics
Why Economists Ignore Much of Rich People’s Income
Steve Roth

Yanis Varoufakis — How Do the Economic Elites Get the Idea That They ‘Deserve’ More? Lessons from Game Theory

The ‘haves’ of the world are always convinced that they deserve their wealth. That their gargantuan income reflects their ingenuity, ‘human capital’, the risks they (or their parents) took, their work ethic, their acumen, their application, their good luck even. The economists (especially members of the so-called Chicago School. e.g. Gary Becker) aid and abet the self-serving beliefs of the powerful by arguing that arbitrary discrimination in the distribution of wealth and social roles cannot survive for long the pressures of competition (i.e. that, sooner or later, people will be rewarded in proportion to their contribution to society). Most of the rest of us suspect that this is plainly false. That the distribution of power and wealth can be, and usually is, highly arbitrary and independent of ‘marginal productivity’, ‘risk taking’ or, indeed, any personal characteristic of those who rise to the top. In this post I present a body of experimental work that argues the latter point: Arbitrary distributions of roles and wealth are not only sustainable in competitive environments but, indeed, they are unavoidable until and unless there are political interventions to keep them in check.…
Evonomics
How Do the Economic Elites Get the Idea That They ‘Deserve’ More? Lessons from Game Theory
Yanis Varoufakis

Francois Badenhorst — Martin Luther King Jr. Asked This Economist a Profound Question


The interesting career of Sam Bowles. His latest book, The Moral Economy, will be available in March.

Evonomics
Martin Luther King Jr. Asked This Economist a Profound Question
Francois Badenhorst

Stefan Molyneux vs Peter Joseph Debate

Peter Joseph is far too intelligent for Stefan Molyneux. But when I read how much Stefan Molyneux fans actually adore him in the posts they written under his videos, I was not only dumbstruck, I also got depressed. How could so many people fall for his BS. Stefan Molyneux is not just a simpleton, he's also a con artist?

I thought this guy in the video below did as fantastic job at deconstructing Stephen Molyneux pathetic arguments for neoliberal capitalism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJabvf1omDA















Evonomics — Paul Krugman on Evolution and Economics


WHAT ECONOMISTS CAN LEARN FROM EVOLUTIONARY THEORISTS
A talk given to the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy – Nov. 1996
Paul Krugman

Evonomics
Paul Krugman on Evolution and Economics
Paul Krugman

David Sloan Wilson comments.
After complaining that economic soul searching taking place since 2008 ignores evolutionary theory, I was made aware of Paul Krugman’s 1996 address to the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy. I had read it before but upon refreshing my memory I see that it provides an excellent opportunity to reflect upon changes that have taken place in my own field of evolutionary science during the last two decades.…
In short, all of the components of economic theory that made Krugman regard evolutionary theory as a “sister field” in 1996 require foundational changes in economic theory in 2016.
Updating Paul Krugman, “Evolution Groupie”

Jonathan Pie: Reporter! explaining the economy (Full & Uncensored)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mckI8SFKqpY

Jonathan Pie: Reporter gets angry about Matt Damon, David Cameron, Alan Sugar...etc'!  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P979HaI5qlk

Putin Strolls Into Town

I wish our leaders would stand up to the One Percent like this: all we have is a load of pip squeaks. I think this documentary is trying to paint Putin as a dictator - more western propaganda. But it failed with me and my friends. We all think he's great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjrlTMvirVo


JOURNALIST SPEAKS THE TRUTH ABOUT PARIS ATTACK, & MUCH MORE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1D-9_LFPN7g



Matias Vernengo — Chinese slowdown and the world economy


Looks like the slowdown began in 2011.

Naked Keynesianism
Chinese slowdown and the world economy
Matias Vernengo | Associate Professor of Economics, Bucknell University

David Fields — The Mission of Radical Political Economy


Heavy on the jargon of the Left, but an important point about "consciousness-raising" in socio-economic change through social and political activism.

Naked Keynesianism
The Mission of Radical Political Economy
David Fields

Can Fed Chair beliefs really be this fantastical?

In this piece byb Mike Konczal: Is Ted Cruz Right About the Federal Reserve and the Great Recession? I noticed this crazy line:

"Ben Bernanke recently showed that interest rates would have had to go to about -4 percent to offset the Great Recession at the time."

Which refers to this blog by Ben Bernanke: The Taylor Rule: A benchmark for monetary policy?

So here's two problems with this:

1) Does Bernanke really believe this? I mean does he seriously believe that if banks were taxed 4% on their "excess" reserves they would create the $10's of trillions of dollars in bank lending that would be needed to convert the $4 trillion in "excess" reserves due to QE in to "required" reserves? Does he really believe that banks would pay people (negative mortgage rates) to take out loans? Does he really believe that what the American private sector really needs to get back to health is 10's of trillions in new debt that must be serviced with stagnant real incomes? If your economic theory or model requires you to answer yes to any of these questions, then you are not only wrong, you are not qualified to head the world's largest and most important bank.

2) Appeals to authority. I dont know if Konczal himself actually believes that a 4% tax on bank reserves would have led to economic nirvana, but the language he uses is telling.....'Bernanke shows'.....Bernanke didnt demonstrate that the Taylor rule is operative in real life, he just solved for the variables in an equation. But how can that equation accurately reflect macro-economic reality if it requires "yes" answers to some of the ridiculous questions I asked above. And there is no way a rational analysis of banking and accounting mechanics could lead anybody to answer yes to those questions. This "Bernanke shows" nonsense leads uninformed readers to conclude that Bernanke is not stating an ideological position with precious little in evidence or logic to back it up, he's demonstrating "Truth" as a scientist who is intimately familiar with the subject. After all, there were equations that got "solved". So laypeople can repeat Bernanke's myth of a mechanical relationship between interest rates and the economy without hesitation, perpetuating these clearly ridiculous and failed ideas that the mainstream of economics peddles.

All of this is simply to say that the state of economic understanding and commentary is extremely poor. If this is the kind of ridiculous crap that passes for "wonkery" then we are still in a pre-enlightenment phase of economics closer to Copernicus than Galileo even after all of these decades of "studying the science of economics" Laughing My Fucking Ass OFF.


V. Ramanan — Kalecki And Keynes On Wages


Some good quotes.

The Case for Concerted Action
Kalecki And Keynes On Wages
V. Ramanan

Thursday, January 28, 2016

Zero Hedge — How The Rothschilds Made America Into Their Private Tax Fraud Backyard


Another blood-boiler.

Zero Hedge
How The Rothschilds Made America Into Their Private Tax Fraud Backyard
Tyler Durden

See also

Bloomberg
The World’s Favorite New Tax Haven Is the United StatesJesse Drucker



After 8 years of a rally the NY Times just now talks the dollar bull case. It's over.

Forex trading course

HEADLINE INDICATOR...HEADLINE INDICATOR...HEADLINE INDICATOR..BLEEP, BEEP

After 8 years of the dollar going up the NY Times talks bullish on the dollar. It's over folks.

I said in the latter part of last year the dollar was going to peak

I said that when the Fed raises rates the dollar will start heading down.

I said based on the fiscal picture developing now (NOT any "harder to get" b.s.) the dollar is going down.

This is proof. Sell the dollar. Oh, wait...you don't trade Forex??

THEN BUY  MY FOREX VIDEO COURSE!


Are Economists in Denial About What's Driving the Inequality Trainwreck? – Lynn Parramore interviews Lance Taylor

A new paper by economist Lance Taylor for the Institute For New Economic Thinking’s Working Group on the Political Economy of Distribution takes on the way economists have looked at wealth and income inequality. Taylor’s research challenges some conclusions about what’s driving inequality made by Thomas Piketty and Joseph Stiglitz. What’s really causing the growing gap between haves and have-nots? Is it mechanical market forces? Outsourcing? Real estate? As Taylor sees it, economists have gotten the answer wrong. Worker exploitation and outsized business profits are factors, but even more key are the unjustified payments to the wealthy generated by our outsized financial sector. This hasn’t just “happened.” Flawed economic theory and politicians beholden to the rich lead to policies that make it happen. We can fix the problem, but it will take bold steps.…
INET
Are Economists in Denial About What's Driving the Inequality Trainwreck?
Lynn Parramore interviews Lance Taylor

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard — Hysteria over China has become ridiculous


Owing to the "impossible trinity" of a maintaining a fixed exchange rate, an discretionary monetary policy, and free cross-border capital flow. China either must impose capital controls or float the RMB.

The later is the obvious choice. This would reduce the cost of Chinese exports abroad and increase the cost of imports, allowing for import substitution.

The Chinese leadership should take a lesson from Russia instead of trying to beat the neoliberals at their own game.

The Telegraph
Hysteria over China has become ridiculous
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Constantin Gurdgiev — Russian Capital Outflows 2015: Abating, but Still High


Still reduced appetite to save in rubles now that the exchange rate is floating, but appetite is increasing.

Actually, it's mostly balance of payments involving prior foreign debt and corporate deleveraging.

True Economics
Russian Capital Outflows 2015: Abating, but Still High
Constantin Gurdgiev

Under Armour Revenues up 31%


What are thoooossse?????  Shares up 20%...



Dean BakerMike Bloomberg’s Billionaire Blackmail


The title says it all. Sociopathic through and through.

Now it is on the table for all the world to see. Billionaire are now openly trying to control American "democracy" through the power that wealth bestows in a corporate republic.

Beat the Press
Mike Bloomberg’s Billionaire Blackmail
Dean Baker

Richard J. Evans — Marx v. The Rest


Richard J. Evans reviews Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life by Jonathan Sperber, Norton, May 2013.

London Review of Books
Marx v. The Rest
Richard J. Evans
ht Brad DeLong

Jason Smith — Models and frameworks


If you are into scientific modeling and economic modeling in particular, physicist Jason Smith is up with a foundational post. Even if one doesn’t agree with his approach, he illumines the issue, which many conventional economists either ignore or are ignorant of.

Information Transfer Economics
Models and frameworks
Jason Smith

Garikai Chengu — Winston Churchill: Britain’s Greatest Briton Left a Legacy of Global Conflict and Crimes Against Humanity


Feet of clay on a foundation of sand. Counts the ways that Churchill was a sociopath.

Russ — The Fox and the Framework (Rejecting the Corporate Science Paradigm)


Corporate capitalism is what it is by design. It is designed to be sociopathic.

It's been that way since the East India Company was granted a royal charter by Queen Elizabeth on the last day of the year 1600.

When this is this is the way things are set up, it is foolish to except something different.

Countries where corporate capitalism is dominant select so many sociopathic leaders. Their job is to further the interest of corporate capitalism as being in the national interest. This is the basis of trickle down.

Volatility
The Fox and the Framework (Rejecting the Corporate Science Paradigm)
Russ

JetBlue Reports


Prices way down:



Profits way up:



Yanis Varoufakis — How the ‘Troika Effect’ was dubbed the ‘Varoufakis Effect’ – Project Syndicate Op-Ed and beyond

As part of an impressive campaign to discredit the Athens Spring, and those of us who continue to honour and propagate its spirit, a cabal of journalists and ‘analysts’ have joined forces to depict me as the “destroyer of the Greek economy.” The purpose? To demonise the Greek people’s audacity to elect us with a mandate to oppose the Troika in the Spring and early summer of 2015, when they backed our stance with that magnificent 62% NO vote.
Their hideous campaign was summed up recently in the so called ‘Varoufakis Effect’ argument, by Berenberg’s Chief Economist, a Mr Schmieding. Using a chart that ‘shows’ business confidence to have collapsed during the days of my tenure in the ministry of finance (first half of 2015), he pinned on me Greece’s woes. Naturally, the troika’s Greek cheerleaders, with newspaper TO VIMA at the forefront, grabbed the opportunity to jeer and snarl. Except that they were caught with the smoking gun in their hands…
Count on the Right to blame the disasters it creates on the Left.

Yanis Varoufakis
How the ‘Troika Effect’ was dubbed the ‘Varoufakis Effect’ – Project Syndicate Op-Ed and beyond

Edward Lambert — Re: Tim Duy… Brains need not explode


Edward Lambert's effective demand model is turning bearish.

Angry Bear

Ramanan — The UN Global Policy Model

I came across the UN Global Policy Model document with lots of equations and written by Francis Cripps and Alex Izurieta.…
FYI.

Wynne Godley and Francis Crips co-authored Macroeconomics (Oxford, 1983).
The Case for Concerted Action
The UN Global Policy Model
V. Ramanan

UK GDP up on Services


Removal of oil rent; services up 0.7%.

UK GDP growth Q415:  +.5% services .7 production -.2 construction -.1


Alibaba crushes it


Well I don't think you buy gas for your car on alibaba... lower oil prices help the Chinese consumers also.




Pepe Escobar — Silk Dragon Takes Persian Road


Xi on the move. Pepe provides some of the details that were made public.

Strategic Culture Foundation
Silk Dragon Takes Persian Road
Pepe Escobar

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Man Purchases ISIS Sex Slaves

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SkzIsubkkg

Man Purchases ISIS Sex Slaves, But What He Does Next Will Make You Weep Tears Of Joy!
One Iraqi man is garnering attention for purchasing many of the ISIS sex slaves whenever he can. However, what he does to them will truly make anyone with an emotional heart weep tears of joy. The Iraqi man purchases the ISIS sex slaves with the intent to reunite them with their families.



Matt Franko just reminded me: I left Fox News before leaving was cool.

Thank you, Matt! You're a good friend!



Yu Yongding — A Floor for the Renminbi

In early 2014, after nearly a decade of trying to curb expectations of continued currency appreciation, the People's Bank of China finally succeeded, thanks to forceful market intervention. Unfortunately, the PBOC was pushing on an open door and is now facing an even more difficult challenge: strong depreciation expectations.…
When Yu Yongding speaks the world listens. He says to float the RMB.

Project Syndicate
A Floor for the Renminbi
Yu Yongding, a former president of the China Society of World Economics and director of the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, served on the Monetary Policy Committee of the People’s Bank of China from 2004 to 2006. He has also served as a member of the Advisory Committee of National Planning of the Commission of National Development and Reform of the PRC.

See also
Since the beginning of the Global Crisis, illicit capital flows out of China have been in decline. This column argues that a key factor behind this is the relative money supply between China and the US. China’s rapidly increasing money supply, combined with the Fed’s expansionary monetary policy, prompted investors to reallocate their portfolios between the two countries. Another contributing factor is China’s gradual process of capital account liberalisation. The Fed’s interest rate hike in December may see a resurgence in China’s capital flight.
Explains the technical meaning of "capital flight" in terms of balance of payments.

Vox.eu
China’s capital flight and US monetary policy
Yin-Wong Cheung , Sven Steinkamp, Frank Westermann


Stock market update

I posted this when the market was -140. Now it's up. Not a bad call.



Diane Coyle — Inequality and the seeds of destruction


The alliance of capitalism and democracy is breaking down owing to inequality as the middle abandons the elites's agendas. The traditional political theory of republicanism that elites know best how to manage both business and the country is on shaky ground.

The Enlightened Economist
Inequality and the seeds of destruction
Diane Coyle | freelance economist and a former advisor to the UK Treasury. She is a member of the UK Competition Commission and is acting Chairman of the BBC Trust, the governing body of the British Broadcasting Corporation

Maybe more creative destruction or creative disruption than just destruction. Or maybe disruptive innovation. This is being reflected in the rise of populism in the US.

Scott Adams
The Second American Revolution - What Then?

Trump, FOX News, and Megyn Kelly Explained (Master Persuader Series)

The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, Iowa)
Iowa Youth Straw Poll: Iowa students say it's Trump and Sanders —More than 280 schools in 80 counties participate in Iowa  Straw Poll
Rob Boshart and Vanessa Miller






In 1964 Bob dylan and Mario Savio were announcing an impending revolution. Now it is populist presidential candidates. The time scertainly are a-chanin'.

Iran signs oil deal with Greece Refiner


I'm pretty sure Iran wouldn't sign the deal if they thought they were losing munnie on it at these prices.




Trump is leading a revolution, not just against a broken and elitist government, but now against an elitist and dictatorial media, too.

It's becoming more clear to me now thanks to Tom's link to this story, although I don't agree  with everything the author says, particularly his nonstop mention of Mike Bloomberg as an agent of change? Mike Bloomberg?

Whatever.

Anyway, people who see Trump's exit from the Fox News Republican debate as weak, crybaby-ish, petulant, etc, just don't get it. Trump is leading a revolution. It's a revolution against the status quo of our broken, elitist-driven government, and now against the media, too, which is similarly elitist, anti-democratic, arrogant, dishonest and dictatorial.  

I would not be surprised to see his poll numbers go to 50% now on this.

EVERYONE with a brain and a desire for Democracy should APPRECIATE what he is doing and I seriously mean that.


Here's why if Bernie Sanders gets elected he will be neutralized by the very Progressives he's trying to help

Here's the problem with most Progressives: they're a danger to their own cause. They're weak, meek and constantly prone to surrender.

I'll give you a perfect example. Shitlib punchable face, Matt Yglesias, who writes for Vox now, put out this impassioned piece about why Bernie Sanders REALLY has the greatest economic plan of all time; a plan that is REALLY going to create jobs and get the economy going.

You want to know what shitlib punchable face Yglesias said that plan is? He says that Bernie Sanders will use the power of the presidency to get a new Fed Chairman who won't be afraid of inflation and that will allow the Fed to get over its inner anxieties and...STIMULATE...with more monetary policy!!! Yeah!!!

Check it out:
"Here's one more reason to take Bernie Sanders's candidacy seriously: He has put forward statements and arguments on what is by far the most powerful lever a president has on the American economy — the chronically neglected subject of monetary policy."
"Politicians rarely talk about the Federal Reserve even though it's the main agency that regulates the pace of job creation."
"Sanders's core insight, which he laid out in a New York Times op-ed that ran on December 23, is that if you want to talk about jobs and the economy, you need to talk about the Fed. And if you want to understand sluggish wage growth over the past 15 years, it's important to note the Fed's structural biases in favor of Wall Street preoccupations with financial stability and inflation control."
Do you fucking believe this shit?

The most powerful lever a president has on the American economy?

The main agency that regulates the pace of job creation?

This is Sanders' core insight? (I thought Kelton was advising him?)

Could you imagine if FDR tried to use his "lever" over the Fed to fight WWII?

What an ass that Yglesias is along with the rest of the shitlib community.

No word of fiscal policy. No word of an economic plan that includes rebuilding our roads, bridges and infrastructure. Nothing about more basic R&D or, more for health care (by the way, Bernie is for more health care, but paying for it via raising taxes). No word about investing in alternative energy or education. Nothing. They're such fucking cowards!

You see why we need Trump? Bernie, while he has some good ideas (and presumably Kelton is advising him???) he is too weak and almost certainly prone to the influence of all the "beta" shitlibs in the progressive movement, whereas no one will boss the boss--Trump--around.


Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Alexander Mercouris — The Litvinenko Inquiry: London's Absurd Show Trial

What follows is a long and very detailed 11,000 word expert legal analysis of the Litvinenko inquiry by Russia Insider's International Affairs Editor, who was a practicing lawyer for 12 years at the Royal Courts of Justice, the venue of Litvinenko inquiry.

It is the most comprehensive and definitive analysis to date. The author's conclusions are summarized in the first few paragraphs of the article.
Russia Insider
The Litvinenko Inquiry: London's Absurd Show Trial
Alexander Mercouris

Trump shows who's boss...pulls out of Fox News debate

Just announced that Trump has pulled out of the Fox News debate. Good for him. He probably got inside information that he was walking into a trap. A setup. Roger Ailes would not pull Megyn Kelly as per Trump's demand. My guess is that Eric Bolling, who's very close with Trump, probably tipped him off to an ambush. When Ailes didn't pull Kelly, Trump decided to walk.

Good move. Not necessary to walk into a trap when you don't have to.

 FYI...Megyn Kelly is a c--t. I knew people who worked for her at Fox (makeup, hair, bookers, etc) and she treated them all like garbage. She also stiffed my friend out of a commission after my friend busted her as to find Kelly and her husband--millionaires, both--a primo apartment in NYC. What for? Why stiff my friend? Because that is the nature of a bully.

Trump didn't fall into their trap. Good for him. Fox News made enemies with the wrong dude.

Economy Watch — Texas Economy Undergoes Steep Decline

According to data released Monday, general business activity for the state of Texas fell -34.6 in January, which constitutes a worse forecast than analyst expectations, according to Business Insider. The Texas economy has suffered immensely due to the fall of low oil prices, including new regulations that hamper economic output. Experts believe a crude price correction waits on the horizon in 2016, but such a forecast remains uncertain.
Economy Watch
Texas Economy Undergoes Steep Decline
EW News Desk Team

Stephen Roach — False Alarm on China


Stephen Roach discounts the China "crisis."

Project Syndicate
False Alarm on China 
Stephen Roach, former Chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia and the firm's chief economist, pressently a senior fellow at Yale University's Jackson Institute of Global Affairs and a senior lecturer at Yale's School of Management



Constantin Gurdgiev — Russian External Debt: Deleveraging Goes On

In previous post, I covered the drawdowns on Russian SWFs over 2015. As promised, here is the capital outflows / debt redemptions part of the equation.
True Economics
Russian External Debt: Deleveraging Goes On
Constantin Gurdgiev

Al Franken

While I was getting the above Supply Side Jesus video I found these by Al Franken. Awesome! The guy has so much confidence.


Franken Kicks Conservative Ass


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK_NZOhbUnk


Bill O'Reilly clashes with Al Franken "SHUT UP!" 1/2


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TISf3noZW9c


Bill O'Reilly clashes with Al Franken 2/2


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFUHYNPjET8

Al Franken's "Supply Side Jesus" comic - animated

Have you seen Al Franklin in action, the guy is awesome. I might post some videos here about him soon. This is an animated cartoon inspired by him. A great send up of neoliberalism.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc-LJ_3VbUA

YV: "God and his angels could not fix Greece based on this loan agreement"


Keyword here being " L-O-A-N ":




Neo-cons take a big hit in GOP civil war





Fed giving government bonds as collateral


Ramanan picked off a good one the other day in this moron-fest we continue to observe, probably somehow why the bonds have rallied:




One Salmon Costs More Than Barrel of Oil


That's because the fish don't just swim in to the harbor and jump up onto the dock by themselves...

Western Europe’s biggest oil producer is suffering from the collapse in crude prices. But another top commodity export in Norway, salmon, is fetching record-high prices because of low supplies and a weak currency. As the seafood-industry news site iLaks.no reported this month, oil has fallen so low and salmon risen so high that one standard, 4.5 kilogram fish now costs more than a barrel of crude, measured in kroner.

Fishermen in Norway now getting paid more (in kroner) for their productive contribution relative to their oil rentiers previously.

Monday, January 25, 2016

Weekly U.S. Imports from Canada of Crude Oil


All time high last week, 3.449M bbls:




Data at EIA link here.


VIDEO: The curious incident of the polonium in the nightclub…

It looks like the British has been lying to us again and their so called free press has been not been telling us the truth either. As I previously said, Big Brother is alive and well here in the West. I guess they just want Putin out so the can get their neoliberal crooks back in again, so they are setting him up as the bad guy. But Putin doesn't have his military bases all over the world, and Russia is not surrounding the US with enemies. And yet, the US is planning to stockpile even more nuclear weapons in Europe. It's just big business.


VIDEO: The curious incident of the polonium in the nightclub…


http://www.ibtimes.com/us-nuclear-weapons-europe-massive-protest-planned-against-new-atomic-weapons-germany-2122692


Nuclear weapons are big business and another con trick to loot the tax payer.


US Nuclear Weapons In Europe: Massive Protest Planned Against New Atomic Weapons In Germany


http://www.ibtimes.com/us-nuclear-weapons-europe-massive-protest-planned-against-new-atomic-weapons-germany-2122692


Smedley Butler, the highly decorated US general, knew all about how the ruling class used war to make mega big profits for themselves. But they never pay for any of the wars themselves, the tax payer pays for them instead.


During WW2 the people in Britain were put on the 'War Effort'. The women - and the men who couldn't fight on the front line - who made the weapons, were asked to make a special effort which was known as 'The War Effort'. Many worked for free and did very long hours because they were true patriots, but the ruling class who owned the factories always charged the British government top price for the weapons. They should have been put on trail for treason.


War is a Racket by Smedley Butler  


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3_EXqJ8f-0



















Bill Black — Wall Street Declares War on Bernie Sanders


The sheriff is back in town.

New Economic Perspectives
Wall Street Declares War on Bernie Sanders
William K. Black | Associate Professor of Economics and Law, UMKC

Bill Mitchell — Exchange rate movements and exports

There was an article a few weeks ago purporting to show that public deficit expansion (increased net public spending) has never worked. I won’t link to the article because I would not want the magazine to get any advertising revenue via my blog and also because, frankly, the article is one of those reinvent history efforts – along the lines of when the facts do not align with theory the way forward is to just make up some new facts and deny what actually happened. But one of the examples use to justify the claim “Keynesian deficit spending … over and over again … has not worked” is the Ireland and Denmark experience in the 1980s when these nations “reduced their government budget deficits, which according to Keynesian theory should have depressed the economy. But on the contrary, the economies did particularly well”. This example is often used these days to justify the claim that deficit spending does not promote growth and fiscal austerity does not damage growth. However, no ‘Keynesian’ theory I know suggests that cutting the fiscal deficit will ‘depress’ the economy. It all depends … and that is what this article (like all the others that use this example) fails to recognise or admit. It bears also on current events in Canada and Argentina, which are demonstrating some other interesting facets of macroeconomics.…
Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Exchange rate movements and exports
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

McDonald's Growth Surges in Q4


Lower oil rent = "Super-size me!"

China reaps $460 billion a year from commodity crash


Supportive of their policy transition to more domestic consumption, as the lower prices for imports will lead to more consumption per unit fiscal withdrawal and additionally they are increasing fiscal withdrawals for domestic programs this year.  China domestic situation looking really good for 2016.

Same thing going on in the US though a different situation from China as US domestic policy is not proposing as much growth in fiscal withdrawals as China but the impact of lower import prices in the US would be higher than that of China.

Benefits are rippling through the economy, pushing down or steadying prices of everything from home heating and petrol prices to the cost of raw materials at factories. That’s also boosting China’s efforts to recalibrate its economic growth model away from a reliance on heavy industries and investment toward consumption and services.




Sunday, January 24, 2016

Jason Smith — The pinball theory of value


I have posted a good deal of Jason Smith's take on the foundations of economics and economic modeling from a physicist's POV. Maybe that's not your thing.

This is about the value and money, which should interest just about everyone here.

Information Transfer Economics
The pinball theory of value
Jason Smith

Jason Smith — Economists should start calling them approximations


More on foundations and economic modeling.

Information Transfer Economics
Economists should start calling them approximations
Jason Smith

A Very Nasty Capitalism - Yes, Big Brother Is Already With Us: How The System Is Stacked Against Us.

This is superb video about predatory capitalism and how the system is stacked against us.


Let Your Life Be a Friction to Stop the Machine


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2Xh5eN2fXY#t=677


Commentary:


Without the exploitation and enslavement of the Third World Western capitalism would fall apart. And yet millions of people believe in the myth and vote Conservative despite the fact that most of their hard work will get siphoned off by higher classes.


This brutal capitalist system freaks some parents out so much that they start cramming boring and relentless information into their children even when they two years old in the hope they will become top performers and be able to outsmart others. It's then the treadmill of harder and harder work as capitalism sets worker against worker extracting more and more profit out of them. And when some fail, as they must, they are made to feel that it is their fault and not the fault of the society they live in.  


When school kids leave school and fail to get the jobs they applied for they will usually blame themselves even though thousands might have applied for the same job. This is how our western system cons them so they won’t try to blame the system, which is a set up, a fakery, and a visage to camouflage the fact that the ruling elite have already taken all the best jobs and got all the best positions.


At the beginning of the last century the ruling class feared democracy because they thought the lower classes would tax them too much and question how they got to own to own most of the land. So they got together and schemed about how they could control the masses and rule them the way they have always done. One way was to invent the 'meritocracy' and 'competitive capitalism' so that workers would have to compete with each other which would keep their wages ultra low and keep them working as serfs.


In a similar way, when the slave trade was ended some savvy slave owners saw an advantage to this because they realised that they would not have to house, feed, or pay medical bills for their slaves anymore. And with the millions of newly freed slaves all competing for work, this kept their wages ultra low and so that in effect the slave owners got their slaves back, but without all the hassle of looking after them.


And the mega wealthy spread their risks and invest in different competing companies and as one wins they will shift their shares around to the winning companies all in a jiffy. But the workers in the losing companies can't change jobs so easily and so get forced to work much harder to compete otherwise they might get made redundant and then even lose their homes. This is terrifying to most people and as good jobs are hard to come by they will work harder to keep the ones they have got. Then many will end up getting into their offices earlier and staying later in the evening, or taking extra work home, and workers on the shop floor will accept lower wages rises, or even wage cuts and ever worsening conditions and hours.


The capitalist terror machine keeps us running around like blue-arsed flies too petrified to lose our jobs, and our school kids get regimented and pounded every day so they will become compliant workers, or soldiers, when they leave school. While every child gets continuously graded and this grading system is designed to destroy the confidence of most of the children so that when they grow up they will blame themselves for not getting a bigger cut of the pie even though the system was heavily stacked against them. In this way, the ruling class can keep their power without anyone questioning the system by making the lower classes feel that they didn’t deserve to get any better.


And because of the schooling system middle class and working class people often feel overwhelmed and nervous when they get promoted but the mega rich are brought up to be leaders and to have supreme confidence which means that they usually find promotion effortless and the best jobs falling into their laps. Below is an interesting article about this:


Yes, rich kids already won the career game. Here’s why.


https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2011/01/30/yes-rich-kids-already-won-the-career-game-heres-why/


Extract:


Middle-class kids generally fuck up their first few years of the career game in one of two ways. Either they fear authority tremendously, which is crippling from a career perspective and renders them devoid of creative energy, or they show an open distaste for managerial authority, described by the wealthy as having a proletarian “chip” on one’s shoulder, and fail to advance on account of the dislike they thus inspire. Even when they are cognitively aware of how to manage authority, the stakes of the career game for a middle-class striver, who will fall into humiliation and possibly poverty if he fails it, are so severe that only the well-trained and steel-nerved few can prevent these calamitously high risks from, at least to some degree, disrupting their game.


The rich kid, on the other hand, relates even to the highest-ranking executives as equals, because he knows that they are his social equals. He’ll answer to them, but with an understanding that his subordination is limited and offered in exchange for mentoring and protection. He views them as partners and colleagues, not judges or potential adversaries. Perhaps this is counterintuitive, but most of his bosses like this. (Most bosses aren’t assholes and don’t like to be feared, at all. In fact, they’d be happy to forget that they are bosses.) His career advances fast. He’s “up and coming”. This occurs even if no one has any idea that he’s from a wealthy background.


The rich kid, fearless on account of not needing to keep his job, can effortlessly walk the middle path. He’s neither a cowering weakling who crumbles at the sight of authority, nor an obnoxious brat whose sense of entitlement and dislike for managerial authority limit his progress prematurely. He respects others and himself and has an uncanny air of effortless “coolness” (by which I mean freedom from anxiety) that enables him to actually get things done. It becomes common knowledge that he’s “up-and-coming”, a rising star in his company. Even if his performance is smack-average or somewhat below, his effortless rise will not be deterred. It is assumed. With that advantage, he can concentrate on actually getting work done, yet another uncommon advantage.

Eric Tymoigne — Money and Banking – Part 3

(A quick note: I noticed that the M&B posts get posted on other blogs. If you want me to respond to you, you should comment at NEP.)
New Economic Perspectives
Money and Banking – Part 3
Eric Tymoigne | Associate Professor of Economics at Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon; and Research Associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College

Noah Smith — Book Review: "Economics Rules"


Noah Smith reviews Dani Rodrik's new book. Useful.

Noahpinion
Book Review: "Economics Rules"
Noah Smith | Assistant Professor of Finance, Stony Brook University

Trade and invest off fiscal data. $4-trillion-plus moves EVERY market.

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Forex, stocks, commodities...guaranteed profits!
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Guaranteed profits!

Hi everyone, this is Mike Norman.

Over the years I have taught people about the incredibly important information found in the Daily Treasury Statement. That resource is literally the checkbook of the United States Government, an entity that spends upwards of $4 trillion per year.


It's literally "inside information!"

The withdrawals from that checkbook affect everything, everywhere. We're talking the global economy and with that, stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities, gold, you name it. It's literally inside information, but totally legal.

Very few people have the time or expertise to comb through that data, but if they did, they would find a treasure trove of information signaling when and what the next market and economic trends would be.  

Why I created this report

There was such a need for this information that I created a new report that details all of the major fiscal trends happening at the moment as well as those that are going to happen.

Fiscal Trend Trader

This report is called the Fiscal Trend Trader and it gives you the most important, timely, information on THE most powerful force affecting the global economy, the U.S.Federal Movement. You will be able to invest in the markets, trade and forecast the economy with absolute confidence thanks to the information contained this weekly letter.

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