Athenian dialogues on global income inequality — Branko Milanovic

 A clever take-off on Plato using the Socratic method called elenchus (which became the template for the tradition of free inquiry and open debate as a foundation of Western liberalism).

Global Inequality
Athenian dialogues on global income inequality
Branko Milanovic | Visiting Presidential Professor at City University of New York Graduate Center and senior scholar at the Stone Center on Socio-economic Inequality, senior scholar at the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), and formerly lead economist in the World Bank's research department and senior associate at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

China’s Response to Decoupling — Yu Yongding

Important because of who wrote it.

Project Syndicate
China’s Response to Decoupling

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

US Congress plots to save dollar dominance amid global de-dollarization rebellion — Ben Norton

Note that there is a difference between "de-dollarization" as replacement of the USD as the dominant global reserve currency and dollar avoidance to reduce exposure to political and economic manipulation by the US government and financial system.

Geopolitical Economy Report
US Congress plots to save dollar dominance amid global de-dollarization rebellion
Ben Norton

Chartbook 223 Acting out of ignorance: the new logic of central bank inflation-fighting — Adam Tooze

...what actually is the base rationale for action? A particularly searching answer was offered in mid-June by ECB Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel in a talk she gave in the financial center of Luxembourg.

Most of the post answers this question. Depressing from an MMT standpoint.

Chartbook
Chartbook 223 Acting out of ignorance: the new logic of central bank inflation-fighting
Adam Tooze | Shelby Cullom Davis chair of History at Columbia University and serves as Director of the European Institute

MMT Basics: Interest Rates — NeilW

Neil summarizes the MMT position as put forward by Bill Mitchell.

There is a need to distinguish special cases from the general case. While the general case MTT view may be agreed upon, reactions to differences in special cases (US, GB, Australia) may create the appearance of disagreement about the general case where there is no fundamental disagreement since the apparent disagreement is accounted for by national conditions that supervene.

This is an interesting post not only in terms of clarifying the MMT view but also in regard to interest rates and inflation. Interest rate policy may produce different consequences in special cases owing to institutional differences, e.g., the impact of interest rate setting through the housing channel is somewhat different in the US, GB, and Australia for this reason.

New Wayland
MMT Basics: Interest Rates

NeilW

William Mitchell — Japan’s monetary policy experiment is working

Last week – RBA wants to destroy the livelihoods of 140,000 Australian workers – a shocking indictment of a failed state (June 22, 2023) – I wrote about the sense of being in a parallel universe when one reads official statements from the Bank of Japan and juxtaposes them against the stream of statements coming out of other central banks. The day after I wrote that post (June 23 2026), the Japanese e-Stat service (the portal for Japanese government statistics) released the latest – Monthly CPI data – which showed that the annual inflation rate fell by 0.2 points to 3.2 per cent in May, on the back of significant easing in electricity and gas prices, in part the result of government policy aimed at reducing energy prices rises in the domestic economy. Here is some more about the parallel universe. I conclude that the experiment underway between central banks is indicating that Japan’s zero interest rate regime (with fiscal expansion) is not an inflationary factor. It has not driven dangerous shifts in inflationary expectations for businesses or households. Further, the decision by the Bank of Japan not to hike rates has reduced the cost-of-living squeeze on mortgaged households that is being imposed by the (transitory) inflationary pressures. By way of contrast, other central banks have imposed extra burdens on those with debt and are engineering a massive redistribution of income from poor to rich into the bargain. As they continue with their blindness, they are risking recession and a major rise in unemployment, which will add to the pain the citizens are enduring.

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory

Japan’s monetary policy experiment is working
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

The Greater Eurasia project: Building bridges and breaking barriers — Pepe Escobar

If you're counting on Asia's many new power centers to compete and clash – don't. The Greater Eurasia Partnership is set to integrate them all – from the SCO, EAEU, and BRICS, to emerging new currencies – in order to replace the 'rules-based order [my-way-or-the highway].'

The Cradle
The Greater Eurasia project: Building bridges and breaking barriers
Pepe Escobar

Related

Sputnik International (Russian state-sponsored media)
Existing Global Financial System Exhausted, Not Up to New Challenges - French President

More in U.S. Say Inflation Is Causing Financial Hardship

 

Recent poll from a month ago… the Brandon people still have a serious political problem due to “inflation!”… will be continuing to tell the monetarists at Treasury/Fed to correct this which means ever higher policy interest rates (and continued QT) still for now…  headed for a “full Volcker”? 🤔

Thanks to reckless spending
by POTUS and Congressional Democrats: More in U.S. Say Inflation Is Causing Financial Hardship https://t.co/3hTwwJ73q8 #

— Senator John Cornyn (@JohnCornyn) May 22, 2023

The New Global Financing Pact equals the old failed global financial arrangements — Bill Mitchell

Macron et al fronting for the banksters? The ideal of finance capital is private borrowing instead of public financing and the rationale for it is designed for purpose.

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory
The New Global Financing Pact equals the old failed global financial arrangements
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Art Degree hypocrites

LOL can’t even make this up…. Two Roman Catholic “hypocrites!” (Mat 23)  criticizing the Church’s recommendation of the dialogic method which is the founding methodology of their entire Christian sect… UFB… 

If any Christian out there is trying to figure out why all this gender bending is currently going on it’s to provide a high profile opportunity to reveal hypocrite morons like this… 

Beware: pension systems about to collapse. Not! More mainstream fiction — Bill Mitchell

Is this situation the result of incompetence or it is propaganda masquerading as science?

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory
Beware: pension systems about to collapse. Not! More mainstream fiction
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Related 

Or is it the design of the system itself so that this situation is just one aspect of a syndrome. Caitlin Johnstone argues it is the result of built-in perverse incentives that favor one class.

CaitlinJohnstone.com
Our Systems Reward Dysfunction And Destruction: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
Caitlin Johnstone

Links on geoeconomics and geopolitics

Sputnik International (Russian state-sponsored media)
Pepe Escobar: Russia’s New Roadmap for Multipolar World

Strategic Culture Foundation (sanctioned by the US Treasury Department)
Putin and What Really Matters in the Chessboard

Pepe Escobar

Russia in Global Affairs
Demonstrative Restraint as a Recipe against Unnecessary Decisions—A reply to the article “A Difficult but Necessary Decision” by Sergei Karaganov (questioned about the use of tactical nukes, Putin said "neyt.")
Ilya S. Fabrichnikov, Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Russia Communication Advisor

Swiss

Background and elements of the war in Ukraine [Much further reaching than the war on Ukraine. Important.]

Jaques Baud, Colonel in the General Staff of the Swiss Army and worked for the Swiss Strategic Intelligence Service

RT — Question More (Russian state-sponsored media)
Nations lining up to join BRICS – Russian deputy FM [Sergey Ryabkov]

Chartbook
Chartbook 220 Biden's "new industrial policy": Revolution in the making, or an exercise in defying gravity? 

Chartbook 221 The IRA (& the Fed) debate - bringing hegemony back in  [somewhat wonkish but important for the issues involved. Very good at stating the factors in consideration in terms of social, political, and economic factors as aspects of the same system.]

Adam Tooze | Shelby Cullom Davis chair of History at Columbia University and serves as Director of the European Institute

Scheerpost

The Climate Crisis Is on Track to Push One-Third of Humanity Out of its Most Livable Environment [mass migration of mass culling]

Abrahm Lustgarten / Alertnet

Bill Black and Michael Hudson on Corruption in Finance — Patrick S. Lovell interviews Bill Black and Michael Hudson

Transcript of a podcast.

Naked Capitalism
Bill Black and Michael Hudson on Corruption in Finance
Patrick S. Lovell, producer of The Adventure Core and The Con, interviews Bill Black and Michael Hudson

See also

Funding the Future (formerly Tax Research UK)
Has the West already suffered a coup d’etat? Have the central bankers already seized power?
Richard Murphy | Professor of Practice in International Political Economy at City University, London; Director of Tax Research UK; non-executive director of Cambridge Econometrics, and a member of the Progressive Economy Forum

Also

RT — Question More (Russian state-sponsored media)
Anglo-Saxons control collective West – Moscow 

Interest Transfer vs S&P earnings

 

Cumulative TTM earnings for the entire S&P 500 about $1.5T … Fed transferring 5% IOR on $3T Reserve Balances to Depositories = $150B annual… Treasury in transition process of paying 5% on $25T public debt to USD savers in Treasury Securities Accounts = (eventually) $1.25T annual….

Collectively these two are in process of providing approximately additional amount of annual free munnie equivalent to what a year of blood sweat and tears shed by all of the millions of people working at the S&Ps are earning…

And the Art Degree morons are trying to tell us this is supposed to be bearish? 🤔

Ferrari new all time highs everyday...

 

Dems imposing what has to be the most regressive policy in the last 20 years at least…

Let’s go Brandon! 🤑

Ferrari new all time highs everyday.. looks like only poor see recession pic.twitter.com/rE0ZdLZtSI

— 🅰🅻🅴🆂🆂🅸🅾 (@AlessioUrban) June 14, 2023

Links — 15 June 2023

Common Dreams
Top US Companies Admit to Hiking Prices to Pad Their Profits: Analysis

Jake Johnson

Lars P. Syll’s Blog
My new book is out
Lars P. Syll | Professor, Malmo University

Zero Hedge

Asian Central Banks To Adopt Iran's SWIFT Alternative As De-Dollarization Accelerates [The first objective is not to replace the dollar as the reserve currency but to provide countries of the Global South/East with an alternative to the dollar settle trade accounts among them.]

Tyler Durden

Strategic Culture Foundation (sanctioned by the US Treasury Department)

Putin and What Really Matters in the Chessboard [the intersection of geopolitics and geoeconomics]

Pepe Escobar

The Hill
RFK Jr. ranks higher in favorability than other major 2024 candidates: [YouGov] poll [the new maverick]

Jared Gans

Asia Times

US chipping away at semiconductor supply chains [What could go wrong?]

William A Reinsch and Emily Benson

Breaking Defense
Historic German national security strategy sees beyond military [Germany had better be thinking about the economy as vital to national security,]

Christina MacKenzie

Global South

Russia is abuzz: The use of nuclear weapons can save humanity from a global catastrophe – Sergey Karaganov [The jist is that the US only understands force, so Russia needs to use it.]

amarynth

CaitlinJohnstone.com
Our Ongoing March Into Dystopia And Oblivion
Caitlin Johnstone

Reminiscence of the Future
Elaboration On Macron And BRICS. [Rothschild family front man]
Andrei Martyanov, former USSR naval officer and expert on Russian military and naval issues

Correcting the Record on the Origin Story of Beowulf’s Trillion Dollar Coin — Lambert Strether

I was motivated to write this post partly to [looks heavenward piously] correct the record, partly to defend the blogosphere’s importance, then and now, and partly to defend the honor of my own blogs, Naked Capitalism and (then) Corrente. I was also, quite frankly, shocked at New York Magazine’s sloppiness, and I hope any Google search brings up this post along with it.

More importantly, however, dear members of the NC commentariat, Beowulf’s Coin began as a comment, and was nurtured by unpaid and obscure bloggers who believed in it, until it caught fire. Perhaps the same will happen for one of your comments! It really is possible, as I have shown! Beowulf’s comment sets a high baseline, however, do remember.

Naked Capitalism
Correcting the Record on the Origin Story of Beowulf’s Trillion Dollar Coin

Lambert Strether of Corrente

Links — 13 June 2023

Bond Economics
Sellers' Inflation
Brian Romanchuk

Naked Capitalism
Michael Hudson at Global University, Hong Kong, on Ukraine, Europe, China, and the Dollar’s Future

Michael Hudson in discussion with Kin Chi Lau, Global University, Hong Kong, June 5, 2023

The Cradle
How the BRI train took the road to Shangri-La

Pepe Escobar

Armstrong Economics
Plot to Seize Russia Makes #1 Book on Amazon
Martin Armstrong

India Punchline
The rise and rise of far-right in Germany [politics and economics]
MK. Bhadrakumar | retired diplomat with the Indian Foreign Service and former ambassador

Common Dreams
The Climate Crisis Will Be the Mother of All Financial Crises [severe dislocation affecting the world system already being felt]

Joäo Camargo

MR Online
The ‘Fourth Turning’ that will define our Century

Alastair Crooke | founder and director of the Conflicts Forum, and former British diplomat and senior figure in British intelligence and in European Union diplomacy

Originally published: Al Mayadeen on June 11, 2023 by Alastair Crooke

Links — 11 June 2023

Strategic Culture Foundation (sanctioned by the US Treasury Department)
The Hegemon Will Go Full Hybrid War Against BRICS+

Pepe Escobar

Naked Capitalism
Michael Hudson on the US Economy – Surprisingly Resilient or Potemkin Village? [video and transcript]
Michael Hudson | President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and Guest Professor at Peking University

Flassbeck Economics International
Germany and Europe: Severe recession, falling prices and a totally misguided economic policy
Heiner Flassbec

Naked Capitalism
The EU Looks to “Jungle” Sacrifice Zones to Help It Out of Energy Crisis
Conor Gallagher

The Loadstar

China builds Central Asia infrastructure dominance with new rail plan

Alex Whiteman

h/t Naked Capitalism

WSWS
The war in Ukraine and the fight over raw materials [So was Vietnam according to the US DOD]

Gregor Link

Dances with Bears
LOSING THE WAR — WHAT COMES NEXT ON THE BATTLEFIELD, AND THE POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES
John Helmer

Real-World Economics Review Blog
Victoria Chick, 1936-2023 in memoriam
Editor

Lars P. Syll’s Blog
The torch has to be carried on
Lars P. Syll | Professor, Malmo University

Still bearishness on TGA increase

 

Many investors short term bearish on a reduction of their figure of speech “liquidity!”…

Druckenmiller is 100% spot on here 👇 pic.twitter.com/1LGMs9FXqM

— Financelot (@FinanceLancelot) June 10, 2023

What could neuter a new bull market? A recession that knocks down earnings would be a big one, of course. But the more immediate concern is liquidity.

With the debt ceiling finally passed, the Treasury is expected to issue at least $1.2 trillion in T-Bills, with half of that… pic.twitter.com/lwGmjNjw3w

— Jurrien Timmer (@TimmerFidelity) June 9, 2023

If USD reserve balances are simply transferred from the RRP account to the TGA account there won’t be any adverse regulatory effect… 

But if instead the USD reserve balances are transferred from the Depository account to the TGA account then system regulatory leverage ratio will increase allowing Depository system to apply HIGHER prices (NOT lower prices ) to remaining non-USD Reserve assets while maintaining an equivalent leverage ratio…

Though may cause more chaos in small banks that have a dearth of Reserve assets… but that would be their problem…

$400b of new Bills being issued Monday and Tuesday and will settle a few days after that… have to watch what the regulatory effect of TGA refunding is… it may be very favorable to Depositories…

Why China’s socialist economy is more efficient than capitalism — John Ross

"Capitalism" in the title of the post should be in quotes. Actual capitalism is highly efficient. The problem with it is that it favors capital and leads to social and political disruption. True capitalism is not practiced in the so-called capitalist world. Rather, the monopoly capitalism and financial capitalism that are dominant are centered on rent-seeking and rent extraction rather than on profitmaking from economic contribution based on the cycle of production, distribution, and consumption in a market-based economy. While true capitalism is based theoretically at least on free markets, where "free" signifies a symmetrical market, contemporary capitalism prefers asymmetrical markets that are favorable to economic rent.

But just how is socialism more efficient. John Ross explains. Central to the argument is the assumption that investment efficiency is a foundational aspect of economics.

Socialist China’s investment is much more efficient in creating growth than in capitalist countries such as the U.S.. As will be shown, this efficiency of China is integrally linked to the socialist character of its economy.

As usual the method will be used to use the wise Chinese dictum to “seek truth from facts”. The first section of the article will establish the facts showing the greater efficiency of China’s investment. The second section will demonstrate that the reasons for this lie in the socialist character of China’s economy....

MR Online

Why China’s socialist economy is more efficient than capitalism

John Ross

Related

Unherd
The capitalists are revolting over China: Western hawks face an unlikely resistance

Thomas Fazi

Debt Ceiling

 

Art degree moron fest finally over… Now let’s see what happens…

President Joe Biden’s signature of legislation suspending the federal debt ceiling has given the Treasury Department the green light to resume net new debt issuance https://t.co/F7sKoSNIeq

— Bloomberg Markets (@markets) June 4, 2023

 Consensus is bearish on the imminent Art degree figure of speech “liquidity drain!”…

Wall Street is warning markets aren't ready for a tsunami of Treasury issuance now that the debt-ceiling deal is sealed https://t.co/8Ie5pbnTk0 @marketsより
これから金利が上がりやすく、そのためスプレッドも大きくなることが予想されるので株には良くない環境になりそう。

— Yanagi (@iLWCwlFgbaUIAeH) June 5, 2023

Primer: The Cantillon Effect — Brian Romanchuk

The Cantillon Effect is the label applied to a process described in Richard Cantillon’s , «Essai sur la nature du commerce en général», published in 1755. (One English translation of the title is “An Essay on Economic Theory.”) The basic premise is that an initial inflow of money will raise prices as the original recipients of the money spend it, which will then raise other prices as the “new money” enters others’ hands.

Bond Economics
Primer: The Cantillon Effect
Brian Romanchuk

CPI

 

June ‘22 CPI was 296 on a impulse increase due to Brandon’s Russia sanctions…  if we can get a May flat M/M then YoY is 296 to 303… 7/296 = 2.4% which is back to normal…

Will this effect the Art degree morons thinking on their figure of speech “inflation!” ?

Who knows with these deranged people…

Student loan payments

-$16B per month net fiscal flow starting Aug 1st… more regressive fiscal policy on top of regressive interest rate policy… Brandon’s economic polls should take another hit…

Student loan repayments are about to start again on August 1st, after 3 years of being able to skip without penalty.

40 million people paying an average ~$393 per month each will be pulled from the economy in discretionary spending.

Should be interesting to see how this plays… pic.twitter.com/MLYSX72IC6

— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) May 31, 2023

Already in the toilet:

Fox News Poll: Across the board, voters say economy getting worse for them https://t.co/AwjsaqF15k

— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 27, 2023

Will get worse with these payments being reinstated and more policy interest rate increases…