Euro area Prices in steady down-trend

This data correlates with U.S. fiscal withdrawals over the recent 7 year period:

Drop of euro-area core PPI in Jan suggests core CPI will continue to fall. Good luck, #ECB, w/ that inflation target! pic.twitter.com/a8fmF74g4q
— David Powell (@davidjpowell24) March 3, 2015

As U.S. net fiscal withdrawals have flatlined over the last 4 years, the Euro area price index here has been falling.

March is going to include important events wrt foward US fiscal policy so this trend will either continue or deviate based largely on what the US does here in a few weeks.

New Low...

LibertyFest NYC: Ben Swann, @belle_knox, @adamkokesh, @CindyLakeLV, Angela Keaton> http://t.co/KFtMheiEAa #tlot #tcot pic.twitter.com/MpSIldup1N
— Ian Cioffi (@IanCioffi) March 3, 2015

UFB.

Fort Russ — Suspects named in Nemtsov's murder

The Nemtsov murder investigation has focused on the theory that the crime was organized by a Chechen militant commander Adam Osmayev, of the Dzhokhar Dudayev battalion, who also was named in the case concerning the attempt to assassinate Vladimir Putin. Investigators are allowing for the possibility that the militants, who fought against DPR and LPR, operated at the behest of Ukrainian secret services, since the murder of the opposition leader would have discredited the Russian leadership and destabilize the political situation.

Fort Russ
Suspects named in Nemtsov's murderTranslated from Russian by J.Hawk
(If you read Russian, Dudayev Battalion militants suspected in Nemtsov murder)

JW Mason — What Has Happened to Trade Balances in Europe?

It has gradually entered our awareness that the Greek trade account is now balanced. Greece no longer depends on financial markets (or official transfers, or remittances from workers abroad) to finance its imports. This is obviously important for negotiations with the "institutions," or at least it ought to be.... 

By 2013, the large majority of the euro area is in surplus, while not a single country has an excess of imports over exports of more than 5 percent. The distance above the diagonal line indicates the improvement from 2008 to 2013; this is positive for every euro-area country except Austria, Finland and Luxembourg, and the biggest improvements are in the countries with the worst ratios in 2008. The surplus countries, apart from Finland, more or less maintained their surpluses; but the deficit countries all more or less eliminated their deficits. 

So does this mean that austerity works? Yes and no. It is certainly true that Europe's deficit countries have all achieved positive trade balances in the past few years, even including countries like Greece whose trade deficits long predated the euro. On the other hand, it's also almost certainly true that this has more to do with the falls in domestic demand rather than any increase in competitiveness..

Still, the fact remains, trade deficits have almost been eliminated in the euro area. Liberal critics of the European establishment often say "not every country in Europe can be a net exporter" as if that were a truism. But it's not even true, not in principle and evidently not in practice. It turns out it is quite possible for every country in the euro to run a trade surplus....

The Slack Wire
What Has Happened to Trade Balances in Europe?
JW Mason | Assistant Professor of Economics, John Jay College, City University of New York

My comment there:

Tom HickeyMarch 2, 2015 at 11:17 PM

Liberal critics of the European establishment often say "not every country in Europe can be a net exporter" as if that were a truism. But it's not even true, not in principle and evidently not in practice. It turns out it is quite possible for every country in the euro to run a trade surplus.

Its only impossible for every country in a closed economy to run either a positive or negative current account balance simultaneously owing to accounting identity.

What it means for the EZ as a whole to be running a current account surplus is that other counties must offset this with a deficit.

Not all countries in the global economy can offset domestic private saving desire wrt to net financial assets through the external sector, without relying on fiscal deficits. So the result is some countries running current account surpluses and aiming at fiscal balance, while other must run current account deficits and fiscal deficits in that case.

China, Japan and Germany are chronic net exporters, and the EZ project is for the entire EZ to become a net exporter too. How long is that viable politically for countries that run chronic courant account deficits before there is a reaction?

Of course, it's not really an issue economically if other countries offset the resultant importation of unemployment in the form of embedded labor by running larger fiscal deficits to maintain effective demand sufficient for full employment, but that is considered to be a off the table politically in the currency environment. 74% in the US are favorable to a balanced budget amendment, for example (without understanding the consequences).

This doesn't appear to be a sustainable course for globalization given the current mindset, even though the net importers are getting the benefit in real terms, receiving other countries resources and having foreign workers to the work, too.

But if a country the like the US were smart, it would welcome the advantage in real terms and run a fiscal deficit sufficient to offset net saving desire and manage effective demand at full resource utilization including human resources. But that seem to be too much to ask politically in the current environment.

Rana Dasgupta: How India’s Traumatic Capitalism is Reshaping the World — Lynn Parramore interviews Rana Dasgupta

A British national of Bengali origin, novelist Rana Dasgupta recently turned to nonfiction to explore the explosive social and economic changes in Delhi starting in 1991, when India launched a series of profoundly transformative economic reforms. In Capital: The Eruption of Delhi, he describes a city where the epic hopes of globalization have dimmed in the face of a sterner, more elitist world. In Part 1 of an interview with the Institute for New Economic Thinking, Dasgupta traces a turbulent time in which traditional ways of life are dissolving as a new class of entrepreneur-warriors wields unprecedented power. Delhi’s particular experience of capitalism, he argues, is a story that is changing the global landscape.

INET Blog
Rana Dasgupta: How India’s Traumatic Capitalism is Reshaping the World
Lynn Parramore interviews Rana Dasgupta

Sandwichman — What In Hell Is Capital?

The question is, whence and how does capital arise to become separate from labor? The answer of Marx is that it arises from a monetary economy that enables M - C - M', that is, using existing money to make money by purchasing capital goods and the necessary inputs including labor offered for rent by those free to do so, that is those who are neither slaves nor land-bound serfs that toil for subsistence from their own produce for the landowners' benefit as rent. That is to say, capitalism has certain preconditions that make it possible.

The human capital debate that is now taking place on the blogs is based on Gary Becker's view that capital and labor are actually not separate. The other side is based on refuting this view. At bottom the issue is over economic rents.

Econospeak
What In Hell Is Capital?
Sandwichman

Peter Radford — Economic Ignorance?

Peter Radford nails it.

And as Bill Mitchell points out, conventional economists are the math whiz kids that they make themselves out to be either. The models they use are simplifications for "methodological convenience" to  make the complex subject matter more "tractable." Modeling complexity is challenging, and a modern economy involves a lot of complexity.

Then there is ideology.

Real-World Economics Review Blog
Economic Ignorance?

Peter Redford

See also

This week’s Economist magazine has just such a lecture in its regular Buttonwood column. This one is entitled “Polls Apart”. 

It begins, as many elitist arguments do these days, with a brief mention of the negotiations over Greek debt. Those negotiations have, according to the Economist, ‘provoked claims that democracy is being ignored’. Well, yes they have — by me amongst others. As a general rule I think the democratic urge ought to take precedence over the capitalist. Call me crazy, but that’s just who I am. 

Now comes the elitist riposte: in the next paragraph, and no doubt in severe tones were we able to listen to the authors voice, we are told that the truth is more simple. There are limits to democracy. And those limits are set by the natural workings of the economy. The exact phrasing is this:

“In fact, there have always been limits on voters’ freedom to pursue their desired economic policies”. 

As it happens I agree with this statement. Yes, it is true that voters’ desires get hampered. Yes, it is true that there are limitations on the economic policies voters can pursue.
But here’s the difference: whereas the Economist claims, in its paternalistic elitist voice, that those limits spring somehow from the nature of the economy, I would make a different claim. I would argue that those limits are set by the impositions of the elite itself as it self-satisfies its wants ahead of the rest of us. These are not ‘natural’ limits at all. They are an artifact of class self-interest.

Elitist Confusion

Barkley Rosser — He's Baaack! Karl Marx And The Transformation Problem

The annual Eastern Economic Association meetings ended yesterday in New York. On Saturday a session on Marx's transformation problem drew an audience of roughly 70 people, with talks by Anwar Shaikh and Duncan Foley, both of the New School, Fred Moseley of Mount Holyoke, with comments by David Laibman, formerly of Brooklyn College and longtime editor of Science and Society, the longest running (since the 30s) scholarly Marxist journal in the US. Besides the unexpectedly large crowd, there was news. 

One piece of news coming from Mosedey is that Karl Marx is about to have a fresh publication in the English language, his original manuscript for Volume III of Capital, which was only published in German in the 1990s....

Econospeak
He's Baaack! Karl Marx And The Transformation Problem
J. Barkley Rosser | Professor of Economics and Business Administration James Madison University

Rahm fighting for his political life in Chicago. Progressive candidate may win runoff

This would be a positive if another one of these neoliberal "faux-centrist" Democrats goes down. Progressives maybe are starting to make inroads? Think DeBlasio in NYC.

Rahm sold the city of Chicago to the highest bidder, cutting education spending, social supports, going after unions--nothing different than what Scott Walker did in Wisconsin at the state level.

And if you don't think so, look who's defending him now: Republicans. Check out the comments from Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL). Typical mindless fear mongering.

Chicago could follow Detroit into bankruptcy if Mayor Rahm Emanuel is not re-elected, Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) warned Monday.

“Rahm’s re-election is essential to maintaining the value of Chicago’s debt market. We need a strong capable leader… I would worry about the value of the Chicago debt if Rahm was not re-elected…. It’s a concern if we have some of the less responsible people running against him,” Kirk said. 

Idiot, crushing the Chicago economy with austerity is good for the city's ability to service its debt? What is he talking about? Moron. And he'll vote with Senate Republicans to not increase the debt ceiling I'm sure. That's obviously his idea of "capable" leadership.

Rahm's in trouble. Let's hope he's done.

February ends with a massive, $460 Federal spending spree

No wonder why the stock market is flying. The data is in and February ended with a humongous, $460 billion spending spree by the Federal gov't. This surpasses last February's $459 billion injection. This may be the biggest February ever. It's certainly the biggest since I have been keeping records.

Last Friday ended with a burst of almost $56 billion in a single day. Total tax refunds for the month (individual and business) came in at $137 billion! That crushes last Feb's refunds of $133 billion. And we can expect another $60 billion in March and $50 billion in April. What a stimulus.

If the idiots in Congress don't f**k it up with the debt ceiling and budget the economy and stocks will be off to the races. Dow 20,000 like butter.

Sadly, though, the Fed will  raise rates. That's my forecast.

You  can't sell into this (stocks). Let's keep our eyes open for Congressional screw-ups mid-month, but for now this is blistering.

Dollar strong now, as it will follow bullish U.S. economic sentiment, but it adds to dollar top probabilities at some point. Bonds will be under pressure from fears of a Fed rate hike due to strong U.S. economy.

Oh yeah, one more thing...

Total employment taxes collected by the Federal gov't in Feb was $186.8b. That is down slightly from the $189.5b collected in January, however, February was a shorter month with less work days so I am hesitant to call any "weaker than expected" result for Friday's jobs number.

Consider this: Last Feb the total employment tax collection  was $177.1b and in Jan of last year it was $185b. That was an $8b differential between Feb and Jan. This year that difference was less than $3 billion, so I am calling Friday's number to be in line with expectations or stronger.

P.S. I teach all of this forecasting off the Treasury Statement  in my course. Watch out for the next one.

YoY Federal Fiscal Withdrawals into Non-govt thru End February

Graphical depiction of what Mike is talking about in his post on this topic above; showing 3 year trend.

Bill Moyers & Co — Watch Oscar-Winning “Citizenfour” For Free — Now!

Citizenfour, the Oscar-winning documentary about Edward Snowden and the NSA leaks that sent him on the run, is streaming for free online through Thought Maybe. 

After the film won Best Documentary Feature at the 2015 Academy Awards a week ago, Snowden congratulated filmmaker Laura Poitras in a statement through the American Civil Liberties Union, writing: “My hope is that this award will encourage more people to see the film and be inspired by its message that ordinary citizens, working together, can change the world.” 

Read an interview with Poitras, and steam her entire film below:

Bill Moyers & Co
Watch Oscar-Winning “Citizenfour” For Free — Now!

Progressive "left" falls for media propaganda spewed by NYT — Bill Moyers Morning Reads and the NYT

This AM, Bill Moyers Morning Reads news summary that generally blows the whistle on the outrageous contains a link to this instead of blowing the whistle on it:

“There Are No Longer Any Limits” — On Friday, shortly after calling for Russians to engage in a mass protest against Vladimir Putin’s leadership, Boris Nemtsov, one of Russia’s most effective opposition leaders, was gunned down as he walked across a Moscow bridge. In the NYT Magazine, Julia Ioffe writes that the shooting has unnerved “Moscow’s embattled liberals” and says the Kremlin is “muddying the waters” around Nemtsov’s killing with an array of improbable theories about who perpetrated the crime.

Even the Moyers people are drinking the Kool-Aid. I don't think that they are consciously or intentionally spewing the propaganda line, but they seem to have been taken in by it. I guess they have forgotten about Judith Miller and the NYT belated apology for hyping the Iraq war based on propaganda.

Bill Mitchell — Germany is not a model for Europe – it fails abroad and at home

Some time ago I wrote a blog – The German model is not workable for the Eurozone (February 3, 2012) where I outlined why Germany’s export-led growth strategy could not be a viable model for the rest of the Eurozone nations. More recent data shows that Germany is not even working very well in terms of advancing the prosperity of its own citizens. A recent report (in German) – Der Paritätische Gesamtverband (HG): Die zerklüftete Republik (The Fragmented Republic) – shows that poverty rates are rising in Germany and there is now a dislocation emerging between unemployment and growth and poverty rates. The reason is clear – too much neo-liberal labour market deregulation and ridiculously tight fiscal policy. Both failing policies that Germany continues to insist should be adopted throughout Europe. It would do the other Member States a service if they banded together and rejected the ‘German poverty model’.

In the early 1980s, Germany embraced the growing neo-liberal myth that the alleviation of poverty was a participatory enterprise – that the poor had to develop their own productive capacities to get themselves out of their situation. That the Government could do very little. 

The German Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ) (the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development) set up a national task force to develop the concept that individuals had to take responsibility for their own poverty fight before external help would be forthcoming. 

The BMZ was influential in OECD and World Bank policy shifts in this regard. It has also been a major player in the –United Nation’s Millennium Declaration – in 2000 and the subsequent – Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – which have defined the global fight against poverty since 2001. 

For reference to the BMZ approach, see their 2010 document – The Millennium Development Goals: Background – Progress – Activities BMZ Information 

At the time of writing, there were 303 days, 9 hours, and 36 minutes (and some seconds) to go before the end of 2015 when the 189 nations that signed up to the Declaration will conclude whether they have been the Eight MDG targets. 

None will go close! 

The Germans are heading in the wrong direction....

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Germany is not a model for Europe – it fails abroad and at home
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at the Charles Darwin University, Northern Territory, Australia

$133 billion in tax refunds have been sent out so far!

So far $133 billion in tax refunds have been sent out according to the Treasury. (Individual and business.) That's more than last year's $130 billion at this time.

In addition, we'll probably get another $55 billion to  $60 billion in March and another $50 billion in April. That'll equate to a $240 billion stimulus over these three months alone. You don't want to sell into that, but you DO want to keep  an eye on what these idiots in Congress (read: Republicans) do with the debt ceiling, which will have to be raised sometime around mid-month.

We've got plenty of financial (money) firepower coming into the economy over the next two months and we've already gotten a huge injection in February, however, failure to raise the debt ceiling or, keep it suspended (as it is now) will be a HUGE red flag for stocks and the economy.

Stay tuned.

(BTW...this was all taught in my Daily Treasury Statement course...plus a lot more!)

Sputnik International — China and Russia to Jointly Commemorate WWII, Promote Own View on History

Beijing and Moscow are planning to hold joint commemorations for the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War; experts note the countries are openly promoting their view on the historic event, debunking the myths created by West... 

Both countries sustained severe massive casualties, on a scale that could hardly be imagined by the West. While the war claimed the lives of 418,000 Americans, 600,000 French nationals and 450,000 Britons, the USSR's casualties amounted to 27 million and China's – to almost 20 million deaths. 

However, the publicist Paul Letters noted that many more could have been killed by Nazi military forces and their allies in these strategic Eurasian regions. For comparison's sake Germany, who launched the war, lost a total of 7.3 million people while Japan lost 2.7 million, according to some estimates.

Sputnik International

China and Russia to Jointly Commemorate WWII, Promote Own View on History

Heather Timmons — US lawmakers say China’s “corrupt, gangster” regime is bad for Hong Kong

Poking the dragon.

Quartz
US lawmakers say China’s “corrupt, gangster” regime is bad for Hong Kong
Heather Timmons

Bloomberg View — Nemtsov's Murder Defines Putin's Russia

The new narrative.

This one is actually funny: "The government has also licensed Russian nationalists and the security services to pursue a covert war in Ukraine, a connection Nemtsov was threatening to expose with a report on the Russian soldiers fighting and dying there."

The new talking point that you'll be hearing a lot of in the US media and among its UK poodle and European vassals: Putin is creating a nationalist (fascist) attitude of hatred in Russia. (Who'se projecting here?)

There is no evidence the Kremlin ordered Nemtsov's killing, and it would have as much to lose as to gain from such a public execution on one of the most closely surveilled sidewalks in Russia. Nevertheless, since Putin returned to the presidency in 2012, he has systematically stirred up hatred for his political opponents, tarring men such as Nemtsov as members of a treacherous “fifth column.” [oligarchs, neoliberals, Russian mafia and assorted American stooges] 

Most recently, pro-Kremlin legislator Dmitriy Sablin joined in creating the so-called Anti-Maidan movement, which brings together ultra-nationalists, Communists and a Hells-Angels-style motorcycle gang [sic] to counter opposition protests. The government has also licensed Russian nationalists and the security services to pursue a covert war in Ukraine, a connection Nemtsov was threatening to expose with a report on the Russian soldiers fighting and dying there. [fabrication]

Indeed, the most frightening interpretation of the liberal politician’s death is that the alliance of security service officers and ultra-nationalist thugs Putin has unleashed is now beyond his control.  [Think US deep state here.]

Nemtsov’s death may not change things in Russia; much of the population appears to be caught up in a nationalist fervor. [In American it's called "patriotism."] But outside the country, perhaps it can end any illusions that Putin's toughness is somehow a trait to be admired. He has taken Russia back to an old and discredited form of government. [I'm confused. Would that be Stalinism or Nazism?]

Bloomberg View
Nemtsov's Murder Defines Putin's Russia
The Editors

Another talking point is that Boris Nemstsov was incorruptible.

Stringer News (pictures, Russian text) via Fort Russ, translated by J. Hawk
 “The second level, more expensive, starts at $1500 for an evening"--or how Nemtsov rolled

Another talking point is that Nemstov was popular. His party was at the 1% level with no national representation. Moreover, he was generally unpopular owing to his position in the Yeltsin regime that had brought the oligarchs to power and resulted in massive deprivation in Russia. On the other hand, Putin is broadly created for reversing that direction and returning Russia to a path of prosperity and greatness. Russians do not blame Putin for the current economic crisis, which they attribute to the fall in the price of oil and Western sanctions, which they regard as grossly unfair and politically motivated to attack a rising Russia.

John T. Harvey — Why Balancing The Budget Means Economic Catastrophe

... there are many–among both policy makers and the general public–who are convinced that one of our short-term priorities must be reducing government spending.... 

This is nothing short of insanity. There is absolutely no question that moves to try to balance the budget will meet with the same success as they did in 1937, when they served to raise unemployment from 14% to 19%. I have already written on this topic many times and so will limit myself to making only three points today:

Forbes — Pragmatic Economics
Why Balancing The Budget Means Economic Catastrophe
John T. Harvey | Professor of Economics, Texas Christian University

Josh Israel — TransCanada Is Seizing People’s Land To Build Keystone, But Conservatives Have Been Dead Silent

“If this were a wind mill project or a solar project, Republicans would have been hair-on-fire crazy supporting the property rights of farmers and ranchers,” she observed. “But because it’s an oil pipeline, it’s fine."

Property rights are sacred except when they aren't.

Think Progress
TransCanada Is Seizing People’s Land To Build Keystone, But Conservatives Have Been Dead Silent
Josh Israel

Heather Cox Richardson — It’s Worse than Scott Walker and Ted Cruz: Secrets of Conservatives’ Decades-Long War on Truth

Deep on page 546 of his 1,839-page budget, Wisconsin’s Governor Scott Walker tucked in a crucial idea. He proposed to strip a principle from the mission statement of the University of Wisconsin, a school that attracts students from all over the nation and from 131 foreign countries. From the core philosophy that has driven the university since the turn of the last century Walker wanted to hack out the words: “Basic to every purpose of the system is the search for truth.” Rather than serving the people of the state by developing intellectual, cultural and humane sensitivities, expertise, and “a sense of purpose,” Walker prefers that the state university simply “meet the state’s workforce needs.” In the face of scathing criticism, the governor backtracked and, despite a trail of emails that led to his office, tried to claim the new language was a “drafting error.”

But Walker’s attempt to replace the search for truth with workforce training was no error. Since the earliest days of Movement Conservatism in the 1950s, its leaders have understood that the movement’s success depends on destroying Americans’ faith in the academic search for truth. For two generations, Movement Conservatives have subverted American politics, with increasing success, by explicitly rejecting the principle of open debate based in reasoned argument. They have refused to engage with facts and instead simply demonized anyone who disagrees with their ideology. This is an astonishing position. It is an attack on the Enlightenment principles that gave rise to Western civilization.

Make no mistake: the attack is deliberate....

In 1951, a young William F. Buckley, Jr. articulated a strategy for opposing the consensus that supported New Deal policies. Buckley’s “God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of ‘Academic Freedom’” was a sophomoric diatribe by the Catholic son of a wealthy oil magnate, published by the small right-wing Henry Regnery Press. In it, Buckley rejected the principles that had enabled social progress for centuries and laid out a mind-boggling premise: The Enlightenment, the intellectual basis of Western Civilization, was wrong.
Rational argument supported by facts did not lead to sound societal decisions, Buckley claimed; it led people astray. Christianity and an economy based on untrammeled individualism were truths that should not be questioned. Impartial debate based in empirical facts was dangerous because it led people toward secularism and collectivism—both bad by definition, according to Buckley. Instead of engaging in rational argument, Buckley insisted, thinkers must stand firm on what he called a new “value orthodoxy” that indoctrinated people to understand that Christianity and economic individualism were absolute truths. Maintaining that faith in reasoned debate was a worse “superstition” than the Enlightenment had set out to replace, Buckley launched an intellectual war to replace the principle of academic inquiry with a Christian and individualist ideology..

In 1960, a new voice added anti-intellectual populism to Buckley’s rhetoric. Political operative Phyllis Schlafly wrote “A Choice Not an Echo” to support Barry Goldwater’s quest for the presidential nomination. In her world, correct political decisions were simple: The nation was engaged in a great struggle between good and evil, and educated Eastern Elites who insisted on weighing the realities of a complicated world had enlisted on the wrong side. Elites complained that Goldwater “had one-sentence solutions” for complicated problems, she wrote, but simple solutions were the answer. Communism was bad, so anyone advocating government activism was evil. Elites arguing for government action were parasites. All they really wanted was money from government contracts, paid for by hardworking regular Americans..

By the time of the George W. Bush administration, Movement Conservatives had constructed a post-modern political world where reality mattered far less than the popular story of Conservatives standing firm against the “Liberal agenda” of godlessness and communism. As a member of the Bush administration [Karl Rove] famously noted to journalist Ron Suskind, “the reality-based” view of the world was obsolete. It was no longer viable to believe that people could find solutions to societal problems by studying reality. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” this senior advisor to the president told Suskind. “We are an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors… and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”.

When Governor Walker replaced “the search for truth” with “meet the state’s workforce needs” in the charge to the University of Wisconsin, he did not make an error. He was articulating the principle that has driven Movement Conservatives since their earliest days: Facts and arguments can only lead Americans toward a government that regulates business and supports working Americans, and they must be squelched. The search for truth must be replaced by an ideology that preserves Christianity and big-business individualism. Religion and freedom for mega-business, Movement Conservatives insist, is what America is all about.

AlterNet
It’s Worse than Scott Walker and Ted Cruz: Secrets of Conservatives’ Decades-Long War on Truth
Heather Cox Richardson, Salon

Strategic Culture Foundation — Russia ready to repel any nuke strike, retaliate – missile forces command chief

Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces are ready to react to any nuclear strike even if it is lightning fast, SMF Central Command chief said. A retaliatory strike would take place in all circumstances, “without hesitation,” he added. 

“If there’s a challenge to repel a lightning-fast nuclear in any given conditions – it will be done in fixed time, that’s dead true,” the Strategic Missile Forces Central Command’s chief, Major-General Andrey Burbin, told Russian News Service on Saturday. 

Russia’s strategic missile forces are positioned geographically in such a way that no global strike can knock them out completely, Burbin said. 

In case an order is given to carry out a nuclear strike, Russian nuclear weapons operators will fulfill it, he added. 

“There would be no hesitation, the task would be executed,” he said. 

The unavoidability of a retaliatory nuclear strike from Russia is also guaranteed by the fully automatic and constantly modernized ‘Perimeter’ system, also known as “Dead hand.” 

The system collects data from various sources, such as radioactivity and seismic sensors scattered throughout Russia, by scanning radio frequencies and communication activities. 

If pooled data indicates that Russia has suffered a nuclear strike, the system launches special missiles that travel through national airspace, sending launch signals to all surviving strategic nuclear missile complexes. In this case a retaliatory missile strike is launched without human input. 

Burbin also told RSN that rearmament of the Strategic Missile Forces is ongoing as planned and by 2020 up to 98 percent of Russia’s nuclear deterrent forces will be armed with brand new weapons.

Trying the heat up a notch. This should drive the neocons and wars hawks like John McCain ballistic.

Strategic Culture Foundation
Russia ready to repel any nuke strike, retaliate – missile forces command chief

Seumas Milne — Pinkoes and Traitors by Jean Seaton review – my father, the BBC and a very British coup

This was a No 10 coup by any other name – and one from which the BBC has never fully recovered. 

The Guardian
Pinkoes and Traitors by Jean Seaton review – my father, the BBC and a very British coup

Seumas (shay-mus) Milne

Also

Sir John Sawers, who recently retired after five years as chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that Russia poses a "state to state threat". 

Sir John said dealing with such threats would require more defence spending.

Anyone see a pattern here? If not, refer to above.

BBC
Sir John Sawers, ex-MI6 chief, warns of Russia 'danger'

More Than A Bit Naive To See NeoLiberal Econ As Merely An Honest Dispute Between Academics

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)

How about a dishonest racket among Control Frauds, with runaway momentum?

WHERE MACROECONOMICS WENT WRONG

Their premise requires one to believe that "orthodox" economics ever had things right in the first place.

Control Frauds in the Mist? Brought to you by Gresham Dynamics, Inc. (unlisted)

Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten — Confirmed by Kiev: Ukrainian Land Being Transferred to Oligarchs and Seed Companies

Just like Michael Hudson has been saying from the get-go.

This was the plan all along and when the previous government got in the way of it, it was replaced by coup. Perhaps worst was the willingness to use neo-Nazi nationalists to conduct the coup and to cut them in on the deal.

Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten via Russia Insider

Confirmed by Kiev: Ukrainian Land Being Transferred to Oligarchs and Seed Companies

Translated by Anita Zalaldinova

If you read German, Kredite aus Steuergeldern: Saatgut-Konzerne kaufen Land in der Ukraine

Uh ... Isn't Demand Destruction Inseparable From Policy?

  (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)

Oil price crash is driven by Demand Destruction, not politics

?? Same thing? Or do they think the only demand that can be destroyed is demand for oil? They can't see the Aggregate Demand for THEIR demands?

How are Demand Destruction & policy separable?

Yuriko Koike — Thomas Piketty’s Japanese Tour

Six months after Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the Twenty-First Century generated so much buzz in the United States and Europe, it has become a bestseller in Japan. But vast differences between Japan and its developed counterparts in the West, mean that, like so many other Western exports, Piketty's argument has taken on unique characteristics. 

Piketty's main assertion is that the leading driver of increased inequality in the developed world is the accumulation of wealth by those who are already wealthy, driven by a rate of return on capital that consistently exceeds the rate of GDP growth. Japan, however, has lower levels of inequality than almost every other developed country. 

Indeed, though it has long been an industrial powerhouse, Japan is frequently called the world's most successful communist country.

Japan has a high income-tax rate for the rich (45%), and the inheritance tax rate recently was raised to 55%. This makes it difficult to accumulate capital over generations – a trend that Piketty cites as a significant driver of inequality....

So what's the problem?

In fact, there is a sense that Abe's policies are contributing to rising inequality. That is why Piketty's book appeals to so many Japanese. 

For example, though the recent reduction in the corporate-tax rate was necessary to encourage economic growth and attract investment, it seems to many Japanese to be a questionable move at a time when the consumption-tax rate has been increased and measures to address deflation are pushing up prices. To address this problem, the companies that enjoy tax cuts should increase their employees' wages to keep pace with rising prices, instead of waiting for market forces to drive them up. 

Herein lies the unique twist that Piketty's theory takes on in Japan: the disparity is not so much between the super-rich and everyone else, but between large corporations, which can retain earnings and accumulate capital, and the individuals who are being squeezed in the process.

Project Syndicate
Thomas Piketty’s Japanese Tour

Yuriko Koike, Japan's former defense minister and national security adviser, was Chairwoman of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party's General Council and currently is a member of the National Diet.

Also

Across the Curve
Making Piketty’s Case
John Jansen

United States Remains a British Colony, Looted Surreptitiously, Through Banking Practices?

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)

British bankers as a monkey still on our back?  Or worse?

The United States Remains a British Colony?

And Alexander Hamilton & Aaron Burr should have both gone down with Benedict Arnold?

And even George Washington was confused on this point!

Parts of this essay are very confused (see the section on our "National Debt" - not to mention Royal Opium fields), but the historical anecdotes, including comments by Bismarck, are fascinatingly revealing.

All military plans are meaningless (& any "local" plan whatsoever), without perception of FULL context?

I wonder if even Smedley Butler fully caught on. Certainly your average PhD hasn't (since I've talked to quite a few of my colleagues here, around the NIH, FDA, USDA etc). :(


So much sturm & drang, and all of it merely over misguided attempts by social parasites to keep aggregate populations constrained. This is so pathetic that it's painful to observe.

Bankers. Never have so few, slowed evolution by so much, for so long. Who's work are they doing?

And WHY?

"While boasting of our noble deeds we're careful to conceal the ugly fact that by an iniquitous money system we have nationalized a system of oppression which, though more refined, is not less cruel than the old system of chattel slavery." - Horace Greeley (1860s - note the timing)

I'm reminded once again of Plato's quote, from circa 380BC:

"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." - Plato(~350BC)

That's no way to drive our own social evolution, nor to co-chaperone evolution of anyone or anything else.

And those voices in your head, from the monkey on your back? Turns out they've been teaching "economics" ... all along!

Who knew that "balanced fiat" were code words for "gimme banana!" That would actually explain a lot.

Like Abe Lincoln (& Horace Greeley) advised, we should have none of this BS. We've got countless bigger & better options to explore, & more of them every single day. The era of the banker parasites has come to an end, though it may not occur by any path that current agitators could foresee.

Now that GoogleWallet is taking off even more (thanks to Apple! :) ).  Maybe the entire merchant world will turn on banks, and break their monopoly.

This indirect route might change things faster than all the people trying to use sledgehammers on a mountain.

No wonder so many banks & billionaires are investing in Apple.

Apple vs Google may become a proxy fight between banksters/aristocracy and the rest of the F500+SMEs+consumers combined.

Here are some further hints that Apple (& their billionaire investors) could be buying into, counting on, or at least clueless about class warfare.

"Google Wallet never got off the ground because Android is for poor people who lack the discretionary income to justify stores buying the NFC readers. This is still true with Softcard, which won't get off the ground for the very same reason. Now, Samsung has its own wallet for its wealthy customers that it'll favor over Google Wallet, but it's a moot point as Samsung's wealthy Galaxy customers are switching to iPhones because it's increasing clear now that Apple is pulling away from Samsung on all fronts such as Apple Pay uses tokenization for greater security but Samsung's new wallet doesn't. Apple increasingly owns the top 20% consumer segment who have the greatest spending power and want the highest mobile wallet security, so both Google and Samsung are left with their less-securewallets for their shared low-income customer base."
http://seekingalpha.com/article/2944036-why-google-is-winning-the-wallet-wars?ifp=0&v=1424954700

Yes, this is a complete mess, and FUBAR. However if anyone has practice at succeeding with accelerating chaos, it's Americans. We can do this, if we try.

What's that say re UK commoners? Not to mention all people in the "Commonwealth".

Oh, those clever British Bankster bastards. Only they could devise a scheme re-labeling capitulation to economic slavery as helping "Common Wealth."

The bigger the lie, the easier it is to believe?

Dirk Ehnts — Reading Mensik’s “The Origins of the Income Theory of Money”

Important. Putting money flow back in economics. Again, resurrecting what had been forgotten.

Josef Mensik: "Instead of imagining a gross exchange of the whole bundles of goods supplied and demanded by the market participants under current prices, the picture is rather that of a flow of monetary streams passing through various markets in the opposite direction to the flows of goods. While the ultimate result of the exchange might be the same, the income theory of money is always interested in how it was achieved monetarily, what the actual monetary flows that facilitated the trade were...."

econoblog 101
Reading Mensik’s “The Origins of the Income Theory of Money”
Dirk Ehnts | Berlin School for Economics and 101

Mary S. Morgan — Modeling as a Method of Enquiry

Should read if you are into economics, philosophy of economics, methodology, philosophy of science, critical thinking, logic,  or epistemology.

h/t Brad DeLong

MODELLING AS A METHOD OF ENQUIRY
Mary S. Morgan
London School of Economics and University of Amsterdam

Forthcoming as Chapter 1 in

The World in the Model by Mary S. Morgan (Cambridge University Press)

Contents:

Part I: Changing the Practice of Economic Science 

1. From Laws to models, from words to object

2. The Naturalization of Modelling in Economics

3. Practical Reasoning Styles 

3.i Modelling as a Style of Reasoning 

3.ii Modelling as a Reasoning Style in Economics 

Part II: Making Models, Using Models

4. Making Models to Reason With: Forms, Rules and Resources 

4.i Giving Form 

4.ii Becoming Formal 

4.iii Resources for Reasoning With 

5. Modelling as a Method of Enquiry: The World in the Model, Models of the World 

6. Conclusion

also

Diane Coyle comments in Models, methods and madness at The Enlightened Economist