RT — New Tax Law to Reverse Capital Outflows, Bring Billions to Russian Treasury

The new law requiring that all foreign dealings now be reported, aims to prevent major capital outflow (estimated at $200 billion in 2014)….

Russia’s upper house of parliament has approved an “anti-offshore” law requiring individual and corporate taxpayers to report foreign profits. The Russian government aims to prevent capital outflow via “offshores,” estimated at $200 billion in 2014.

The law requires Russian tax authorities to be notified of all foreign dealings. The government believes it will return $3.1-4.2 billion in tax revenue to the Russian state budget.…

According to some experts, over $2 trillion has flowed offshore out of Russian jurisdiction in recent years, TASS reports. Even the most moderate estimates put the figure at between $800 million and $1 trillion.…

Legislators believe that 20-30 percent of capital outflow can return to the country via taxes.

Offshore companies are used to blanket the activities of companies that wish to keep ownership details anonymous or as an outlet for criminal activities such as tax evasion and corruption.…

Russia’s largest car-maker, AvtoVaz announced in May that it will drop its offshore status and re-register in Russia. Many of Russia’s biggest state companies- Rusal, Evraz, Russian Railways, and Metalloinvest generate a lion’s share of their profits outside of Russia.

RT

New Tax Law to Reverse Capital Outflows, Bring Billions to Russian Treasury

Eric Schliesser — The Technocratic Conception of Politics (The Economists and Rawls redux)

By a 'technocratic conception of politics,' (recall) I mean to capture the following three features of an enduringimage of politics present in (social) science:

first, it is characterized by the ideal that with social knowledge and its progress, substantial political disagreement can be eliminated.… 

…second, this ideal of conflict-free politics presupposes … considerable value-unanimity in society.… 

Third, the conception requires an image of science in which one of the central aims of policy scientists is to achieve consensus (or lack of disagreement).

In short, this is the assumption of the possibility of achieving a universally true conceptual model free of the cognitive-volitional-affective-sensory biases of ideology. This assumption is based on a level of symmetry that evidence does not support.

The assumption of universalizability of knowledge is grounded in an assumption of methodological individualism, namely, that human individuals are "atomic" in the sense of "rational" human behavior being capable of being modeled in terms of a representative agent. What this type of thinking leads to is generalization from introspection on the part of theorists, assuming lack of bias even admitting bounded rationality: Rational individuals will come to the same conclusion based on the same information. This assumes away ideological bias, as well as the logical problems associated with criteria being foundational to the construction of different world views and ideologies.

There's also a link to download Kenneth Boulding's Economics as a Moral Science.

Digressions&Impressions

The Technocratic Conception of Politics (The Economists and Rawls redux)

Eric Schliesser | BOF Research Professor in Philosophy and Moral Sciences, Sarton Centre for History of Science, Ghent University, Belgium

Yves Smith — Masaccio: Piketty Shreds Marginal Productivity as Neoclassical Justification for Supersized Pay

Yves here. One of the main agendas of neoclassical economics is to give Panglossian defenses of the current order a veneer of intellectual legitimacy. If our system is the result of individuals and businesses behaving in logical ways, at least in the minds of economists, surely the outcome is inevitable, and therefore virtuous, or else those operators would do things differently. The Big Lie in all of this is that neoclassical economics takes power completely out of the equation. While it does assume selfishness, in that everyone is out or himself to maximize his utility, it also assumes atomized actors who lack the power to influence markets. As we wrote in ECONNED: 

To put it another way: the neoclassical paradigm is that of pure competition, where providers are mere price takers and cannot influence market dynamics. But that is a profoundly unattractive business proposition.Even if one were to wave a wand and reconfigure the modern economy along those lines, it would in short order coalesce into larger units as individuals did deals (either via alliances or merging operations) to gain the advantages of greater size, and sought to distinguish their offerings to give them pricing power. And differentiation doesn’t necessarily mean having unique products, but can come through the service related to the products. For instance, convenience stores charge more for staples like milk by virtue of location (on highways where there are no alternatives nearby) or being open at 3:00 a.m.

Yet larger enterprises, or indeed anywhere group ties matter, are weirdly disturbing to neoclassical loyalists. One of the reasons they cling so fiercely to ideas like individuals as the locus of activity, along with rationality and welfare-maximizing results (despite the considerable distortions that result) is that they believe any other stance would support a restriction of personal rights. (An aside: this view is counterfactual. Societies where social bonds have broken down and many individuals are isolated are in fact much more subject to totalitarianism and manipulation by propaganda.)

One widely repeated bit of propaganda in the US is that how much people earn reflects their worth in an economic sense. Given how important business is in American society, maintaining this belief is critical to maintaining legitimacy; otherwise, more and more people would see corporate executives not as captain of enterprise but individuals by luck or connivance, got in a position where they could exploit a system that gives them control over assets and cash flows with perilous little in the way of controls over them (there is a vast literature on principal/agent issues in large corporations).

Here, Ed Walker explains how Piketty took a wrecking ball to the ideas that compensation at the top end of the pay spectrum has anything to do with the type of performance economists care about: marginal productivity. It is telling that this part of Piketty’s argument hasn’t gotten the attention it warrants.

Naked Capitalism

Masaccio: Piketty Shreds Marginal Productivity as Neoclassical Justification for Supersized Pay

Yves Smith 

Jim Rogers is always good for a laugh. Ha! Ha!

Guys like Jim Rogers are geniuses because they understand marketing. They keep repeating their message over and over and over again, even though nothing they predict ever happens.

Same Reason Our Schools Are Failing Our Students? Mismanaging Planet Kindergarten.

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)

Eventually, knowing"WHY" to work/fight/learn ... (motivation) ... always trumps "HOW" to work/fight/learn.

Since motivation drives continued innovation.

The law of multi-level selection? Those who know why they work/fight/learn will always run circles around those who only know how?

If there is no consensus Desired Outcome, then aggregates display lagging orientation to why or how to accomplish ... what? The awesome return on net coordination is possible only when aggregates are working towards a consensus Desired Outcome.

Meanwhile, past history repeatedly shows that all individuals learn best & fastest via unbiased exposure to emerging context. So success tracks instilling optimal learning habits as a prerequisite, BEFORE setting off to master endless strings of emerging tasks.

That's why Froebel invented Kindergarten.

A similar lesson applies (on a different scale) for individual aggregates, not just the individual components of given aggregates.

Surely that reminds you of biology (including, eventually, the human species), which was left - initially unbiased - in a (relatively) safe environment (planet earth), where it could learn all on it's own - without outside bias or micromanagement?

Which sadsack ever said there was any conflict between religion & the scientific method?

For gods so loved the world ... that they didn't try to micromanage it's development? Hopefully.

Yes, everything we ever needed to know we're learning here, from one another. Only one question. Will humans ever stop fighting, and graduate from planet Kindergarten?

Ed Gillespie: "An Obamacare Do-Over" (or "We DON'T Need Death Panels")

Big news out of the right today on a potential GOP alternative to the ACA from Ed Gillespie (worked in Bush II Admin) who recently ran in Virginia for a US Senate seat (lost but close).

Op-Ed at the NYT here.

Gillespie proposes a very fiscal friendly alternative to the current very fiscal UN-friendly ACA.  This may be a roll out of the non-libertarian branch of the GOP's 2017 election healthcare platform.

Here's the deal:

Republicans must have a plan that addresses the concerns that led to Obamacare’s enactment in the first place: rising costs, too many uninsured people and a lack of protection for patients with pre-existing conditions. 

My plan begins by addressing an anachronistic aspect of the tax code that’s rooted in World War II wage and price controls. Those who get health insurance through their employer get a tax break, but those who purchase it on their own generally do not. 

While preserving the tax break for employer-based insurance, my plan would offer health-insurance tax credits for all individuals and families who buy insurance on their own. 

The tax credit would be $1,200 per year for those under 35 years of age, $2,100 for those 35 to 49, and $3,000 for those 50 or older, plus $900 per child. For a family of four headed by two 40-year-old parents, the tax credit would be like having $6,000 in cash to spend on health insurance.  If the family found a plan they liked for less, they could put the difference in a health savings account to help cover out-of-pocket expenses.  

These tax credits would benefit everyone...

OK so from a fiscal perspective, there are about 110M households in the US, so if we assume the average credit per household at $4k per year (the "typical" US household not qualifying for the full $6k in Gillespie's example), this would result in an increase in the leading fiscal flow to the non-government of about $450B annual; or in excess of a 10% increase to the present leading flows of about $4.2T annual.

This 10% leading flow increase imo would at the same time be enough to get us out of the current fiscally induced general economic muddle-thru malaise as well as result in better US healthcare REAL outcomes.

The libertarian nut-jobs on both the left and right are the only thing standing in the way of this type of proposal becoming a reality.

This NYT op-ed from Gillespie stands in SHARP contrast to an infamous previous NYT op-ed by left-libertarian moron nut-job Democrat Ratner here sub-titled "We Need Death Panels" (SCAAAARRRRRYYYY!!!!!! THESE LIBERTARIAN MORONS WILL KILL US ALL OFF!!!!!).

Whether this proposal from GOPer Gillespie or some other non-libertarian-nut-job Democrat derivative that one-ups it, the best approach would be for the government authority to simply provide the citizens with the leading flow of USD settlement balances to purchase robust healthcare from their providers of choice.

Again, the only thing standing in the way of our achievement of this improvement to the current socio-economic condition for US citizens are the intransigent anti-authority libertarian nut-job morons among us.

"Neo-con" tweets...

Interesting tweets from "Mr. Neo-con" himself William Kristol; I guess the right "neo-cons" are not "Wall Street" oriented...

Hard to understand in light of Tom's post below that has Jeb Bush the darling of Wall Street.  Tom's BI story could be a Hilary plant.

See #4 here:

Rationales for Hillary 1. Female 2. 2nd 8 years ago 3. Embodies both CW and PC 4. No threat to fellow wealthy Dems http://t.co/PHadBepGwH
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) November 14, 2014

And this one where Kristol has Hilary as the "Goldman Sachs" candidate:

#WorriedAboutWarren -- as HRC (D, Goldman Sachs) should be in a Dem primary. MT @JohnEkdahl So Hillary has been hearing Warren footsteps.
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) October 24, 2014

I guess the strategy for both sides may be to "run against Wall Street"?

This is more evidence that the right at least recognizes that the left has developed a vulnerability with the socio-economic justice cohort of US voters.

Elena Holodny — The World Economy Is Slowing

Manufacturers around the world have confirmed that economic activity is slowing down everywhere.

Business Insider
The World Economy Is Slowing

Elena Holodny

Colbert report has some fun with libertarians..

Colbert report does a reverse JFK; i.e. "not because it is hard but because it is easy!"

Good to see some mainstream push-back against libertarian morons at least.

Pretty funny.


 

Colin Campbell — Jeb Bush Is Reportedly Making 'Secret Visits' To Wall Street To Prepare For A 2016 Campaign

Looking like Jeb's in if he wants to be.

If he runs, Bush, the son of former President George H.W. Bush and the brother of former President George W. Bush, is expected to heavily court the Republican establishment and business community.

"He will get the backing," SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci told Business Insider last month. "People will be stepping over themselves."

Business Insider
Jeb Bush Is Reportedly Making 'Secret Visits' To Wall Street To Prepare For A 2016 Campaign
Colin Campbell

David Ellerman — Talk on property theory at UMKC, Nov. 2014

These are the slides, with some minor additions and editing, for a talk On Property Theory given at the University of Missouri at Kansas City Economic Department November 17, 2014.

Glad to see Ellerman at UMKC.

The link at the page does not work as of now. Here is the correct link to download the slides.

David Ellerman
Talk on property theory at UMKC, Nov. 2014

Also
Talk on Alienation versus Delegation at Troy University

Kimball Corson — The Core Problem Of The World Economy And With Capitalism Is Income Distribution

The core problem worldwide is productive capacity has largely out run the capacity of consumers to buy the goods and services capable of being produced. 

The core problem creating this situation are the skewed distributions of income worldwide. High income earners and banks are hoarding money and not lending or spending it. A continuing economic malaise results. 

The core problem worldwide is productive capacity has largely out run the capacity of debt ridden and poorly paid workers/consumers to buy the goods and services capable of being produced. A decade or so ago, producers sought out new middle class consumers in developing countries to avoid the impact of the imbalance in their home countries, but that option is now waning. This leaves few good investment opportunities worldwide and the problem is fast becoming one that is global.…

Income distribution problems are the world's core problem, I suggest….

Capitalism as we know it is in trouble.

Wandering the Oceans
The Core Problem Of The World Economy And With Capitalism Is Income DistributionKimball Corson

Andrew Lainton — Is Piketty the New Malhus?

Lets generalise Malthus’s argument, to look not just at land rent but all quasi rents on assets which though scarcity tend to return yield returns greater than g. 

All such asset purchases will deduct from savings and investment. If we take the proportion of wealth invested in assets as A then the correct expression is not S=I but S(1-A)=I. Of course we also need to consider the investment of yields from assets. So you can modify this through a geometrical expansion (effectively getting an NPV) adding interest as a term.

So we can see that rentier income r>g is deflationary, it reduces aggregate demand. One might indeed argue that the growth in debt over the 20th Century has been a means of compensating for this deflation and once this stops – as per now through austerity – we get deflationary stagnation. Of course assets cant inflate in price forever above their real returns, we get bubble and bust.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions
Is Piketty the New Malhus?

Andrew Lainton

IDEA — Steve Keen in Beijing - Beijing Normal University, November 24-29

1) Lecture for Faculty & Graduate Students in BNU: Dragging economics into the 20th century with basic system dynamics for economics. November 26, 13:30-15:10 p.m., Room 217, Yingdong Building,

2) Lecture for New Economics Reading Group: How endogenous money alters macroeconomics. November 29, 9:30-11:30 a.m., Room 217, Yingdong Building,

3) Short Course, Room 205, 4th Teaching Building
Lecture 1: Failure of old paradigm and promising alternative paradigm: (1) Macroeconomics before crisis and after crisis, (2) Financial Instability Hypothesis, (3) Intro of Modeling Minsky.

Lecture 2: From linearity to nonlinearity: (1) The importance of nonlinearity, (2) 3 dimensions plus mixing for complexity, (3) Debt cycles.
Lecture 3: From equilibrium approach to nonequilibrium approach: (1) Foundations of non-equilibrium economics, (2) Examples of non-equilibrium economic process. November 25, 19:00-21:30 p.m. Room 106, 4th Teaching Building.

Lecture 4: From real economics to monetary economics: (1) Essential role of endogenous money in Minsky’s FIH, (2) Integrating endogenous money into macroeconomics

IDEA Economics: Institute for Dynamic Economic Analysis
Steve Keen in Beijing - Beijing Normal University, November 24-29

Alan Harvey

Peter Cooper — It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way

There is really only one other employer capable of stepping up to the plate when the private sector is in the doldrums: the government. And there is really only one entity that can gift us extra spending money: the government. As far as large customers go, there are two that can partly take our place in the market. One is the government through public consumption and investment. The other is the “rest of the world”. Foreigners provide a market for our exports. This looks promising until it is realized that not every country can rely on export demand to trade themselves out of trouble. The exports of one country are the imports of another. For the world as a whole, there is no net impact on demand or employment.

heteconomist
It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way
Peter Cooper

Jeremy Grantham — The Beginning of the End of the Fossil Fuel Revolution (From Golden Goose to Cooked Goose)

Good summary of the basics of energy economics, with shout-outs to Hyman Minsky and Kenneth Boulding, and high praise for Jamie Galbraith.

GMO Quarterly Letter Third Quarter 2014
The Beginning of the End of the Fossil Fuel Revolution (From Golden Goose to Cooked Goose) 
Jeremy Grantham

Learn how to trade commodities from a pro

Former Phibro commodity trader, Andy Hecht, to teach a commodity trading course on Dec 6. Watch this video for details.

Akhilesh Pillalamarri — India Needs to Join Asia's Emerging 'Chinese Order'

A new Asian order is emerging and South Asia — including India — needs to be a part of it.

In the aftermath of the G20 and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summits, it is becoming increasingly obvious that a new Asian order, complete with an economic architecture, has emerged. Whether this order is referred to as the “Pacific Age” or a New Silk Road or a pan-Eurasian system, all these terms refer to the same thing: a web of economic interdependence in Asia whose hub is the littoral around the East and South China seas, connecting China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. This network of economic prosperity is increasingly being spread by Beijing westward to the rest of Eurasia in an initiative called the “New Silk Road.” Thus, it might not be inaccurate to write that the new Asian economic order can be described as described as the “Chinese Order” in which all roads lead to Zhongnanhai. This is because China’s economy and physical location constitute the hub that drives and connects the rest of Asia. 

Yet as China invests more than $40 billion in overland routes through Central Asia and Russia into Europe and maritime routes from Southeast Asia to the Middle East and Africa, there is one vital region in Asia that is at risk of missing out on joining this new Asian economic and infrastructure network. This region is South Asia, the region that perhaps needs to become part of this hub the most. This would better integrate South Asian countries with each other as well as with their neighbors in Southeast and East Asia. Economic integration within the region and with countries outside of the region is very low. This is despite the fact that China is both India and Pakistan’s largest trade partner (India and Pakistan hardly trade with each other). Most of this trade is one-sided and has not led to massive Chinese investment in infrastructure in either of these countries. South Asian integration into the Asian economic order would benefit all of the region’s countries and would especially help some of the poorest, like Nepal and Afghanistan.

Those who have been following my posts on geopolitics and geostrategy, especially about the world island the geographical pivot of history, will recognize that this is Zbigniew Brzezinski's worst nightmare coming true.

The Diplomat

India Needs to Join Asia's Emerging 'Chinese Order'
A new Asian order is emerging and South Asia — including India — needs to be a part of it.
Akhilesh Pillalamarri

Also

Can India Become the Next China?
Anthony Fensom

Based on OECD projections, the report predicts India outpacing rivals by growing at an average annual rate of 6.8 percent from 2018 to 2030 and 4.3 percent from 2031 to 2060, ahead of China’s 5.4 percent and 2.1 percent, respectively. 

“The demographics of India are more favorable than those of China as China’s labor force has already peaked. Conversely, India still has a young population and will grow at least through 2045 when the country is projected to be home to just under 1 billion workers…India will have 25 percent more workers than China by 2060 while China has 24 percent more today,” the report said. 

The report suggests the “demographic window” that has helped power economic development will close in China by 2020, remaining open in Indonesia until 2035, Malaysia until 2040 and not shutting in India until 2045. 

While China is expected to have a $30.6 trillion economy by 2030 compared to India’s $13.7 trillion, India’s growth is “poised to remain elevated for the foreseeable future, even as China’s economy slows.” Yet the report also cited challenges to the world’s most populous democracy, including its gridlocked lower house, compared to China’s “highly centralized and authoritarian government.”

Jordan Michael Smith — Vote all you want. The secret government won’t change.

The people we elect aren’t the ones calling the shots, says Tufts University’s Michael Glennon.

More on the deep state.

Glennon’s critique sounds like an outsider’s take, even a radical one. In fact, he is the quintessential insider: He was legal counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a consultant to various congressional committees, as well as to the State Department. “National Security and Double Government” comes favorably blurbed by former members of the Defense Department, State Department, White House, and even the CIA. And he’s not a conspiracy theorist: Rather, he sees the problem as one of “smart, hard-working, public-spirited people acting in good faith who are responding to systemic incentives”—without any meaningful oversight to rein them in. 

How exactly has double government taken hold? And what can be done about it? Glennon spoke with Ideas from his office at Tufts’ Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. This interview has been condensed and edited.

The conclusion.

IDEAS: Do we have any hope of fixing the problem? 

GLENNON: The ultimate problem is the pervasive political ignorance on the part of the American people. And indifference to the threat that is emerging from these concealed institutions. That is where the energy for reform has to come from: the American people. Not from government. Government is very much the problem here. The people have to take the bull by the horns. And that’s a very difficult thing to do, because the ignorance is in many ways rational. There is very little profit to be had in learning about, and being active about, problems that you can’t affect, policies that you can’t change.

The Boston Globe
Vote all you want. The secret government won’t change.
Jordan Michael Smith

Fort Russ — Kerry to Lavrov: "Don't pay attention to Obama"

"I brought attention to the list of threats that President Obama had announced in his speech at the UN General Assembly," - said the Minister, reported TASS. - "John Kerry said to me: "Well, don't pay any attention."

Kerry could have added, It's just propaganda.

Fort Russ — Read What Russians Read
Kerry to Lavrov: "Don't pay attention to Obama"
Kristina Rus

Branko Milanovic — On Mark Thoma: marginalism, Marx etc

Mark Thoma has written a very nice blog on how Piketty’s work is transforming economics by bringing it closer too it political economy roots. I found the post excellent, and wanted just to point out one thing which I think is very pertinently argued by Thoma and another where he somewhat simplifies the matter.

Global Inequality
On Mark Thoma: marginalism, Marx etc
Branko Milanovic

George Monbiot — The Insatiable God

Sacrificing all to the insatiable god of capital for the next spurt of growth.

George Monbiot
The Insatiable God
h/t Eric Ashelman

Yves Smith — Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About SWIFT and Russia (But were afraid to ask!)

Yves makes Russia Insider (published by a group of Western ex-pats living in Russia)

• Whether the Russians can launch a robust enough system quickly is an open question
• This is a sensible defensive and potentially offensive measure
• It may have longer-term ramifications if other countries that are not happy with the US decide to join it

Russia Insider
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About SWIFT and Russia (But were afraid to ask!)
Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism

Yves Smith — Wisconsin as a Frontier of School Privatization: Will Anyone Notice the Looting?

I never dreamed that a class I took in college, The Politics of Popular Education, which covered the nineteenth century in France and England, would prove to be germane in America. I didn’t have any particular interest in the topic; the reason for selecting the course was that the more serious students picked their classes based on the caliber of the instructor, and this professor, Kate Auspitz, got particularly high marks. The course framed both the policy fights and the broader debate over public education in terms of class, regional, and ideological interests. 

The participants in these struggles were acutely aware that the struggle over schooling was to influence the future of society: what sort of citizens would these institutions help create? 

As the post below on the march of school privatization in Wisconsin demonstrates, those concerns are remarkably absent from current debates. The training of children is simply another looting opportunity, like privatizing parking meters and roads. The objective is yet another transfer from some of the remaining members of the middle class, public school teachers, to the promoters. And this process also produces an important side benefit for socially unenlightened capitalists: that of slowly breaking one of the last influential unions. 

And lest you had any doubt, despite the claim that charter schools help children, the evidence is that it doesn’t. Moreover, the pattern in capitalism American style is towards ever-greater crapification. So imagine what private schools, where the operators are on relatively good behavior because the project is still in its demonstration phase, look like in ten years.

Making America more competitive.

Moreover, international comparisons show that higher teacher pay is strongly correlated with better educational outcomes, which should hardly seem surprising. Higher compensation, if nothing else, is a sign that society confers some stature to teachers, which helps in attracting capable people into that role.

The pay incentive apparently only works at the CEO level in the neoliberal concept of motivation.

Naked Capitalism
Wisconsin as a Frontier of School Privatization: Will Anyone Notice the Looting?
Yves Smith

Russia Insider — VIDEO: Ukrainian Nazi Torturers Brand Swastikas on Prisoners' Buttocks

You couldn't make this stuff up ... 

These Ukrainian nutcases are so out of control - where is the mainstream media on this??

This video contains testimony of a captive tortured by members of Ukrainian National Guard paramilitary in Kramatorsk area. 

We already reported aboutneo-Nazi admitting the torture in detail - squeezing nipples with pliers, putting needles under fingernails, waterboarding and so on.

Russia Insider

VIDEO: Ukrainian Nazi Torturers Brand Swastikas on Prisoners' Buttocks

Also

Washington's Blog
Meet Ukraine’s Master Mass-Murderer: Dmitriy Yarosh
Eric Zuesse.

Lord Keynes — My Posts on the Natural Rate of Interest

Reference.

Social Democracy For The 21St Century: A Post Keynesian Perspective
My Posts on the Natural Rate of Interest
Lord Keynes

Bloomberg — Bank of China Named Sydney Yuan Clearing Bank, Signs ASX Accord

Bank of China Ltd. has been named as the official clearing bank for the yuan in Australia and agreed to boost cooperation with ASX Ltd., operator of the country’s main stock exchange. 

The People’s Bank of China yesterday anointed BOC’s Sydney branch following the designation of the city as a yuan trading hub and the signing of a free trade deal between Australia and its largest commercial partner during a visit this week by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The accord between BOC and ASX is aimed at lifting transaction volumes in an existing settlement service for the renminbi as the yuan is also known, often abbreviated to RMB. The companies will encourage the use of yuan-denominated fixed-income products and promote ASX across Asia as a venue to raise equity capital both in Aussie dollars and renminbi.

Bloomberg
Bank of China Named Sydney Yuan Clearing Bank, Signs ASX Accord

Benjamin Purvis

RT — Russia’s biggest bank launches financing in Chinese yuan

Sberbank, Russia’s largest lender, will be the first bank in the country to start issuing credit guarantees denominated in Chinese yuan. The new yuan-based letters of credit ensure payments between buyers and sellers, with the bank acting as a router.

This will make payments for import contracts settled in yuan more seamless, the bank said in a statement Tuesday.

RT

Russia’s biggest bank launches financing in Chinese yuan

Mark Thoma — When Piketty Argued for Income Redistribution, He Changed Economics

Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century is beginning to receive book of the year awards, but has it changed anything within economics? There are two ways in which is has, one involving how economists approach questions about the distribution of income and wealth, and the other involving the use of historical narrative as a means of evaluating economic models.…

What Piketty has done in his book is revive the study of the distribution of wealth without violating the positive and normative distinction that economists hold so dear. It’s fine to leave questions about the distribution (or redistribution) of wealth to the political arena, but how can politicians make good decisions if economists cannot tell them about the laws of motion that determine the evolution of wealth and income distributions? Whether or not Piketty is correct about the fundamental determinants of these distributions remains to be seen, but he deserves much credit for reviving these questions and bringing them to the forefront of economic research.

Another thing Piketty deserves credit for is the revival of the historical, narrative methodology as a means of evaluating theoretical models. I was taught that economists should follow a “scientific” methodology. One first writes down a mathematical model, derives hypotheses from it, and then takes those hypotheses to the data to be evaluated through formal statistical tests. 

Piketty shows us an alternative where historical narratives rather than formal statistical tests can be used to draw important conclusions about the ability of particular models to explain the world. Economists, to a large degree, have lost the historical methods and perspective – knowledge of history would have served us well during the financial crisis – and Piketty deserves a lot of credit for reviving this important way of understanding the world.

The Fiscal Times
When Piketty Argued for Income Redistribution, He Changed Economics

Mark Thoma | Professor of Economics, University of Oregon

David Edwards — Indiana Gov. Mike Pence: We’re ‘ennobling’ poor people by cutting off food stamps

This is the current GOP talking point, used by Joni Edwards in her successful bid for Tom Harkin's vacated senate seat from Iowa and Scott Walker's campaign to retain the Wisconsin governorship. 

Here it is reiterated by Indiana Gov. Mike Pence. Both Walker and Pence are likely to seek the 2016 GOP presidential nomination.

The operative words are "government dependency." Expect to hear this  a lot more.

Is "government dependency" a code word?

Raw Story
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence: We’re ‘ennobling’ poor people by cutting off food stamps
David Edwards