Bill Mitchell — The World Bank should be defunded

Australia is currently being shocked on a daily basis with the revelations in our Royal Commission on Banking, which show that our financial services sector (banks, insurance companies, financial planning, etc) is deeply corrupt, with criminal behaviour clearly rife. Hopefully, many of the top executives and board members of these firms will be prosecuted and do time. Another ‘bank’ that has totally lost any sense of moral compass, not to mention effectiveness, is the World Bank. Its behaviour over the years has been scandalous. Earlier this year we learned that its so-called ‘Doing Business’ strategy deliberately manipulated its reporting to undermine a democratically elected government (Chile). And, last week (April 26, 2018), the World Bank released the Working Draft of its upcoming – World Development Report 2019: The Changing Nature of Work – where it attempted to pressure governments into widespread labour market deregulation, which if carried through would further disadvantage workers and further redistribute national income towards profits. The World Bank has outlived its purpose. It is now a seriously dangerous international institution and progressive governments should set about defunding it.

The World Bank has long been criticised for its role in undermining democracy in the less developed world.…

Institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank that grew out of the Post World War 2 consensus between nation states to manage the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate system and the need to reconstruct Europe and build prosperity in poorer nations have long outlived their role.

They have morphed into using their financial power over weaker nations to push a neoliberal agenda which prioritises the needs of international capital at the expense of the well-being of citizens in those nations. 

Both institutions should be defunded and a new international institutional framework created.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
The World Bank should be defunded
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Brian Romanchuk — Fiscal Crisis Sighted! Break Out The Popcorn!

Apparently we are due for some excitement in Treasury market, as per the analysis in "A Debt Crisis is on the Horizon," penned by the luminaries Michael J. Boskin, John H. Cochrane, John F. Cogan, George P. Shultz and John B. Taylor. As a regular reader might suspect, I am somewhat skeptical about the claims in said article. That said, one may note that the discussion therein is not totally incompatible with a Functional Finance framework, although we would need to paraphrase what they wrote. However, the interest rate determination part of the article is pretty weak.

The article itself is not particularly interesting once we strip out the boilerplate that is designed to sell newspapers. As a writing exercise, it is fairly interesting -- they managed to hit most of the boxes for fiscal conservative scare stories....

More faux economics pushing a political agenda.

Bond Economics
Fiscal Crisis Sighted! Break Out The Popcorn!
Brian Romanchuk

Moon of Alabama — Trump Fires FBI Boss James Comey - It's About Time ...

The formal dismissal of Comey is, in my view, the right thing to do. It should have been done earlier.

I agree. Politicization of security and intelligence is not only unprofessional, it is dangerous for democracy. The Democratic Establishment is deeply involved in this and won't let it go. Another sign of a sclerotic "left."

Moon of Alabama
Trump Fires FBI Boss James Comey - It's About Time ...

b

Alexander Mercouris — Darya Klishina – last remaining Russian track and field athlete in Rio – suddenly banned from the Olympics

To put a face on it.

There is so far no explanation for this abrupt reversal. Klishina does not train in Russia but in the US. The reason she was given a special dispensation is because the IAAF accepted that as she trains in the US she could not be involved in any state sponsored doping system in Russia. However media reports say that “information” has been provided to the IAAF that she was somehow involved, which is what has led to the ban on her. This despite the fact that as she herself has said in an angry though dignified statement, her test record is completely clean and no allegations of illicit drugs use have ever been made against her.

This is insanity, obviously not related to fact. It is politicizing ("weaponizing") sports.

The Duran
Darya Klishina – last remaining Russian track and field athlete in Rio – suddenly banned from the Olympics

Alexander Mercouris

Cullen Roche — Do Economists Figure out how the World Really Works?

The reason these predictions were wrong was because they were politically biased, not grounded in operational understandings and compared to faulty or misleading historical data. But this is what so much of economics is these days. It’s not science at all. It’s mostly just politics masquerading as science. And so here we are with this muddled mess of understandings and a policy perspective that no one can agree on and actually appears to be resulting in almost no progress. It’s a sad state of affairs if you ask me and isn’t helping anyone get any closer to understanding our reality.

Pragmatic Capitalism
Do Economists Figure out how the World Really Works?
Cullen Roche