President Obama wants the world to know that he takes it personally that the Democratic Party’s base opposes his latest effort to sell out the people of the world to the worst corporations through the infamous Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal. Obama blurted out at a press conference a number of conservative Republican memes as his sole basis for pushing TPP. He then launched personal attacks on Senator Elizabeth Warren and labor leaders (without naming them). Obama, who is famous for keeping his cool when criticized by the GOP, is thin-skinned when criticized by Democrats. Obama never raged at the Republicans’ “death panel” attacks on him, but he raged at Warren as supposedly making an equivalently openly dishonest attack on TPP’s secret drafting process.
One of the most reprehensible aspects of TPP is that it is (still) being drafted in secret – that it from us, the people – but with corporate lobbyists literally drafting their wish list. Obama made the critical mistake of personally attacking Warren, which is roughly equivalent to a small town mayor launching a personal attack on Jon Stewart. You know the results will be that Stewart will wipe the floor with the mayor....Serious smackdown. Bill gives Barack a "black eye."
Obama is the one who infamously told the bankers he was protecting them from the American people’s demands for the restoration of the rule of law so that the banksters would be held accountable for leading the fraud epidemics that drove the financial crisis and the Great Depression. Obama, being Obama, phrased that in the form of a vile slander of the American people, claiming that they wanted to use “pitchforks” rather than prosecutions.Ouch.
TPP is the opposite of “free trade.” In the jargon of its economic supporters, it is a moldering midden hiding the secretly drafted “rent seeking” provisions designed to help CEOs enrich themselves at the expense of the people of the world. Adam Smith, who supported freer trade, warned over two centuries ago that when CEOs meet secretly it promptly turns into a conspiracy against the public interest and warned that CEOs use their power to aid their own interests at the expense of shareholders and the public. Smith’s warned that it “ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”
Similarly, the even more conservative Frédéric Bastiat famously warned:
“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”
TPP is the legal system designed to authorize plunder with impunity....The roundhouse punch.
Obama did not simply allow lobbyists to largely draft TPP in secret – he classified their drafts – treating them as national security secrets. This would be downright funny if it were not so wicked....Because "national security."
TPP is a deal that Obama, the failed economists, and the CEOs knew could not survive the light. They were aware of the truth of Justice Brandeis’ famous observation that “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” TPP was drafted in secret to avoid that disinfectant. People who are doing straight up deals in the public interest would never allow lobbyists to draft the deal and would have welcomed criticisms of their drafts. The secret drafting of TPP largely by the CEOs’ lobbyists was designed to maximize the ability of CEOs to plunder...Read the whole screed. It's Bill in all his awesomeness.
The actual purpose of his column, however, was to smear any member of Congress (and he singled out Senator Elizabeth Warren as his example) who opposes TPP as not simply economically ignorant, “failing” a “no brainer” exam, but also engaged in “mendacity.” Given that mendacity is Mankiw’s primary area of expertise – and that President Obama soon joined Mankiw in claiming that Warren was lying in her criticisms of TPP – I thought someone should respond to MankiwSmackdown follows.
Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said the opposition is deliberately trying to provoke problems in the country by spreading rumors. Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa denounced efforts by the opposition in his country to copy the strategy of the opposition in Venezuela and try to destabilize his government and the country. “Let's not fool ourselves, what has happened in Venezuela, in Argentina, what they tried to do to Evo (Morales)... is the permanent mobilization, (the strategy of) attrition, trying to create incidents,” said Correa, referring to violent street protests in Venezuela in 2014 and the recent attempt to link Argentine President Cristina Fernandez to the murder of a prosecutor. “But we are going to show, like in Venezuela, we are more, many more,” the president told local media Friday. In an effort to provoke problems in the country, supporters of the Ecuadorean opposition have recently tried to promote rumors that the government was planning to freeze bank accounts in the country. Correa quashed those rumors, saying, “The only problem banks have (right now) is that they're making too much money.” In a deeply unpopular move, the government of Ecuador froze bank accounts in 1999 in an effort to save private banks, causing chaos in Ecuador's financial system.
So, this is fun. Via Zero Hedge comes this report from a Swiss website, Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen (SRF). It seems that a Swiss pension fund tried to evade negative rates on deposits by withdrawing a very large amount of physical cash with the intention of vaulting it. But the bank refused to allow it to withdraw the money in the form of physical cash....
This could have far-reaching consequences. The monetary policy of the last few years has been hampered by the supposed existence of the “zero lower bound”, at which (it is assumed) everyone would opt for physical cash instead of bank deposits and bonds. We already know that the lower bound (if it exists) is actually slightly below zero, since it is the point at which the cost of negative rates on deposits and bonds starts to exceed the cost of holding physical cash (vaulting charges, theft risk and so on). But if investors simply cannot obtain large amounts of physical cash because banks won’t issue it to them, the slightly-below-zero lower bound cannot bind. In which case negative rates could be very negative indeed and no-one would be able to do much about it. There would be no need to abolish or tax cash, as Citi’s Willem Buiter suggests. It could simply be ignored. Welcome to the negative-rate universe.Forbes
Always keep in mind that the real goal of the next Ukronazi offensive will not be to defeat Novorussia, but to pull Russia in and then be defeated by Russia. Such a defeat at the hands of the Russian military will probably provide NATO with a justification for its existence for the next 50 years and completely crush any European desires to rid itself from the EU’s current status of “voiceless US colony”. Should that happen, the much awaited “new Cold War” will be again in full swing, the US military-industrial complex in complete bliss and the US population suitably “re-terrified” by the next “global enemy”.
There are some indications that more and more European politicians are beginning to understand the risks, but they are too weak to meaningfully oppose the AngloZionist [Neocon] hegemony.
Having a war in Europe on a regular basis has always been the linchpin of British foreign policy and this “tradition” has been fully passed on to the US “successor empire” (which immensely benefited from both WWI and WWII). What the Americans want is plainly simple: a major war in Europe, but also one contained to Europe.The Vineyard of the Saker
Should policymakers – politicians and high-level state officials – be experts in their fields? Does professional competence effect public policies at all? And does it prove itself? These, undoubtedly, important issues to be discussed and researched. But in order to delve into them, first one needs to understand why and when some governments appoint people with professional economic background and headed by economists, while in orther cases the picture is different?
In “The Technical Competence of Economic Policy-Makers in Developed Democracies” Mark Hallerberg and Joachim Wehner tackled these questions. They analyzed educational and occupational background data for 1200 policy-makers (presidents/prime ministers, finance ministers, and central bankers) from EU and OECD democracies since 1973. The findings are not just interesting, they also could explain a lot about economic policymaking....Economic Sociology and Political Economy
If Britain’s top economists were in charge, what policies would they implement? Tim Harford sets the challenge
It’s often said that economists have too much influence on policy. A critic might say that politicians are dazzled by data-driven arguments and infatuated with the free-market-fetishising practitioners of the dismal science. As a card-carrying economist, I have never been convinced that politicians are the puppets of economists. Still, the idea seemed worth exploring, so I called up some of the country’s most respected economists and presented them with this scenario: after the election, the new prime minister promises to throw his weight behind any policy you choose. What would you suggest?
My selection of economists was mainstream — no Marxists or libertarians — but arbitrary. There is no pretence of a representative survey here. But there were common threads, some of which may surprise...The economists’ manifesto
Ron Paul says Free Trade Agreements erode National sovereignty, destroy jobs, and only serves the special interests. So-called "Free Trade" is Government-managed trade.When Noam Chomsky and Ron Paul agree, you can be sure that something is up.
The problem we have [in the US] is that, even if only 27% of us are crazy, only 8% of us are paying attention.Why we are so screwed.
The former economics professor, now finance minister, went into Friday’s meeting of eurozone colleagues in Riga repeating his demand that his counterparts admit that their policies towards Greece, Ireland, Portugal and the rest have failed. It is not a message that wins many friends. In Riga he faced a volley of criticism for his repeated expounding of Keynesian economics, with its emphasis on government spending. His opposite numbers find it childish and patronising. They understand Keynesianism, but don’t think it works. Varoufakis admits he is adverse to the compromises familiar to diplomats and politicians, and many think that rather than be responsible for a fudge he would prefer to go down in flames.The problem is a combination of ideology and innumeracy on the part of the neoliberals. That's a fatal combination. Fail.
It looks like this is more about him breaking the rules of a fraternity than about seriously coming to an agreement that most observers think is not that far away. Time for these clowns to grow up.Econospeak
"Exit: light.. Enter: night..."
Analysts still expect earnings for $SPX to increase through the remainder of 2015. http://t.co/qtRs3SvBM1 pic.twitter.com/tNyPyyFLKr
— FactSet (@FactSet) April 18, 2015
There's a common theme in these three examples. The claim that individuals can possess extensive knowledge is also a claim to power and wealth; CEOs, fund managers and politicians all say: "trust us, because we know better."
In this sense, Hayek's message has shifted. Whereas it used to support dominant western institutions, it now undermines them. For this reason, it might be no coincidence that the question "what are the limits of our economic knowledge?" is rarely asked nowadays.
Republicans have been remarkably unified on entitlement reform. Not anymore. Major implications for 2016. http://t.co/tPQC4Pt4ZC
— Stephen Hayes (@stephenfhayes) April 24, 2015
"Paul Ryan pushed his party to get serious about entitlement reform. Spending on Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare is the main driver of our growing national debt, and the failure to address it, Ryan has long argued, is propelling the United States toward economic ruin.
Though many in his party understood the math,Fuck Ryan and all the other libertarian morons, kick them out of the party and let them go and try to reestablish the Confederacy or whatever it is that their libertarian scrambled eggs for brains really want to do.
US ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt has claimed that Russia’s military is continuing to expand its presence in eastern Ukraine. As for proof, Pyatt posted a two-year-old picture of an air defense system from an air show near Moscow.
“This is the highest concentration of Russia air defense systems in eastern Ukraine since August,” the ambassador tweeted, attaching a picture of BUK-M2 missile defense system apparently taken at the International Aviation and Space Show MAKS-2013, which actually took place just outside Moscow.RT
Ironically, however, it’s likely that one of the biggest threats (especially in Europe) to Anglo-American media credibility about Ukraine and other issues is coming from a very old-fashioned medium – a book.
Udo Ulfkotte’s bestseller Bought Journalists has been a sensation in Germany since its publication last autumn. The journalist and former editor of one of Germany’s largest newspapers, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, revealed that he was for years secretly on the payroll of the CIA and was spinning the news to favour U.S. interests. Moreover he alleges that some major media are nothing more than propaganda outlets for international think-tanks, intelligence agencies, and corporate high-finance. “We’re talking about puppets on a string,” he says, “journalists who write or say whatever their masters tell them to say or write. If you see how the mainstream media is reporting about the Ukraine conflict and if you know what’s really going on, you get the picture. The masters in the background are pushing for war with Russia and western journalists are putting on their helmets.” [8]
In another interview, Ulfkotte said: “The German and American media tries to bring war to the people in Europe, to bring war to Russia. This is a point of no return, and I am going to stand up and say…it is not right what I have done in the past, to manipulate people, to make propaganda against Russia, and it is not right what my colleagues do, and have done in the past, because they are bribed to betray the people not only in Germany, all over Europe.” [9]Counterpunch
None of this means that common ground cannot be achieved immediately. The Greek government wants a fiscal-consolidation path that makes sense, and we want reforms that all sides believe are important. Our task is to convince our partners that our undertakings are strategic, rather than tactical, and that our logic is sound. Their task is to let go of an approach that has failed.Project Syndicate
The value of the dollar relative to other currencies is by far the main determinant of our balance of trade. We can talk about better education and training for our workforce, improving our infrastructure and better research, all of which are important for the economy.The Guardian
But anyone who claims that improvements in these areas can offset the impact of a dollar that is overvalued against another currency by 15-20% is out of touch with reality. If the dollar is overvalued by 20% against another country’s currency, it has the same effect as imposing a 20% tariff on US exports and giving a government subsidy of 20% to imports.
This is the direct effect when other countries deliberately buy up US assets to prop up the dollar against their currency. This is the main reason the United States is currently running a trade deficit of more than $500bn a year.
This trade deficit creates a huge gap in demand. It has the same impact as if households were taking $500bn a year out of their paychecks and stuffing the money under their mattress. There is no obvious way to make up this gap in demand. In principle we could fill the gap with large budget deficits, but this is a political non-starter....
Switzerland is running out of ammo for the global #currencywars http://t.co/Dx0PvCXbXv via @business Today's rebound: pic.twitter.com/wP5GOIjs26
— paul dobson (@paul_dobson) April 23, 2015
#EUSTEEL MARKET STEADY BUT THE IMPORT THREAT STILL EXISTS http://t.co/KhzkrUNpyZ
— Meps International (@mepssteelprices) April 22, 2015
Foreword by the Saker:
The analysis below is, by far, the best I have seen since the beginning of the conflict in the Ukraine. I have regularly posted analyses by Ishchenko on this blog before, because I considered him as one of the best analysts in Russia. This time, however, Ishchenko has truly produced a masterpiece: a comprehensive analysis of the geostrategic position of Russia and a clear and, I believe, absolutely accurate analysis of the entire “Putin strategy” for the Ukraine. I have always said that this conflict is not about the Ukraine but about the future of the planet and that there is no “Novorussian” or even “Ukrainian” solution, but that the only possible outcome is a strategic victory of either Russia or the USA which will affect the entire planet. Ishchenko does a superb overview of the risks and options for both sides and offers the first comprehensive “key” to the apparentlyincomprehensible behavior of Russia in this conflict. Finally, Ishchenko also fully understands the complex and subtle dynamics inside Russian society. When he writes “Russian power is authoritative, rather than authoritarian” he is spot on, and explains more in seven words than what you would get by reading the billions of useless words written by so-called “experts” trying to describe the Russian reality.
We all owe a huge debt of gratitude to Denis, Gideon and Robin for translating this seminal text, which was very difficult to translate. The only reason why we can read it in such a good English is because the innumerable hours spent by these volunteers to produce the high quality translation this analysis deserves.
I strongly recommend that you all read this text very carefully. Twice. It is well worth it.The Vineyard of the Saker
The Saker
Introduction: For many decades, mainstream social scientists, mostly conservative, have argued that political commitments and scientific research are incompatible. Against this current of opinion, others, mostly politically engaged social scientists, have argued that scientific research and political commitment are not contradictory.
In this essay I will argue in favor of the latter position by demonstrating that scientific work is embedded in a socio-political universe, which its practioners can deny but cannot avoid. I will further suggest that the social scientist who is not aware of the social determinants of their work, are likely to fall prey to the least rigorous procedures in their work – the unquestioning of their assumptions, which direct the objectives and consequences of their research.
We will proceed by addressing the relationship between social scientific work and political commitment and examining the political-institutional universe in which social scientific research occurs. We will recall the historical experience of social science research centers and, in particular, the relationship between social science and its financial sponsors as well as the beneficiaries of its work.
We will further pursue the positive advantages, which political commitments provide, especially in questioning previously ignored subject matter and established assumptions.A major purpose of scientific method is reduction of subjectivity in the interest of greater objectivity. However, since meaning is context-dependent, it is not possible logically to achieve complete objectivity by isolating the positive from the normative. It is also empirically suspect in that cognitive science has shown that the rational and non-rational are deeply entangled in brain functioning. Since it is not possible to stand outside of point of view, it is also impossible to be sure that one has identified all hidden assumptions. The proper course of rational enquiry is to identify and acknowledge the most significant assumptions that are involved in a model, whether it be conceptual or mathematical.
We will start by raising several basic questions about scientific work in a class society: in particular, how the rules of logical analysis and historical and empirical method are applied to the research objectives established by the ruling elites.….
After World War II, wealthy business elites and capitalist governments in the United States and Western Europe established and funded numerous research foundations carefully selecting the functionaries to lead them. They chose intellectuals who shared their perspectives and could be counted on to promote studies and academics compatible with their imperial and class interests. As a result of the interlocking of business and state interests, these foundations and academic research centers published books , articles and journals and held conferences and seminars, which justified US overseas military and economic expansion while ignoring the destructive consequences of these policies on targeted countries and people. Thousands of publications, funded by millions of dollars in research grants, argued that ‘the West was a bastion of pluralistic democracy’, while failing to acknowledge, let alone document, the growth of a world-wide hierarchical imperialist order.
An army of scholars and researchers invented euphemistic language to disguise imperialism. For example, leading social scientists spoke and wrote of ‘world leadership’, a concept implying consensual acceptance based on persuasion, instead of describing the reality of ‘imperial dominance’, which more accurately defines the universal use of force, violence and exploitation of national wealth. The term, ‘free markets’, served to mask the historical tendency toward the concentration and monopolization of financial power. The ‘free world” obfuscated the aggressive and oppressive authoritarian regimes allied with Euro-US powers. Numerous other euphemistic concepts, designed to justify imperial expansion, were elevated to scientific status and considered ‘value free’.….The result was "weaponization" of knowledge.
The transformation of social science into an ideological weapon of the ruling class reflected the institutional basis and political commitments of the researchers. The ‘benign behavior’ of post-World War 2 US empire-building, became the operating assumption guiding scientific research. Moreover, leading academics became gatekeepers and watchdogs enforcing the new political orthodoxy by claiming that critical research, which spoke for non-elite constituencies, was non-scientific, ideological and politicized. However, academics, who consulted with the Pentagon or were involved in revolving-door relationships with multi-national corporations, were exempted from any similar scholarly opprobrium: they were simply viewed as ‘consultants’ whose ‘normal’ extracurricular activities were divorced from their scientific academic work.
In contrast, scholars whose research was directed at documenting the structure of power and to guiding political action by social movements were condemned as ‘biased’, ‘political’ and unsuitable for any academic career.….
In other words, academic authorities replicated the social repression of the ruling class in society, within the walls of academia. Their principle ideological weapon was to counterpose ‘objectivity’ to ‘values’. More specifically, they would argue that ‘true social science’ is ‘value free’ even as their published research was largely directed at furthering the power, profits and privileges of the incumbent power holders.….You can see where this is going. Neoliberalism.
Twenty-five years ago, the concept ‘reform’ referred to progressive changes: less inequality, greater social welfare, increased popular participation and more limitations on capitalist exploitation of labor. Since then, contemporary social scientists (especially economists) use the term, ‘reform’, to describe regressive changes, such as deregulation of capital, especially the privatization of public enterprises, health and educational institutions. In other words, mainstream academics transformed the concept of ‘reform’ into a private profitmaking business. ‘Reform’ has come to mean the reversal of all the working-class advances won over the previous century of popular struggle. ‘Reform’ is promoted by neo-liberal ideologues, preaching the virtues of unregulated capitalism. Their claim that ‘efficiency’ requires lowering ‘costs’, in fact means the elimination of any regulation over consumer quality, work safety and labor rights.
Their notion of ‘efficiency’ fails to recognize that economies, which minimizeworkplace safety, or lower the quality of consumer goods (especially food) and depress wages, are inefficient from the point of view of maximizing the general welfare of the country. ‘Efficiency’ is confined by orthodox economists to the narrow class needs and profit interests of a thin layer of the population. They ignore the historical fact that the original assumption of classical economics was to provide the greatest benefit to the greatest number.…
Once their political commitments define the research ‘problem’ to be studied and establish the conceptual framework, they apply ‘empirical’, historical and mathematical methods to collect and organize the data. They then apply logical procedures to ‘reach their conclusions’. On this flawed basis they present their work as ‘value-free’ social science. The only ‘accepted criticism’ is confined to those who operate within the conceptual parameters and assumptions of the mainstream academics."Efficiency" is the neoliberal weapon of choice, as if efficiency were synonymous with effectiveness. It is not.
In his op-ed in Project Syndicate, ex-NATO chief and former Danish PM Anders “Fog of War” Rasmussen calls for war against Russia in the name of democracy and the ever so elusive “Western values”. “The current conflict between Russia and the West is, at its core, a clash of values,” he announces to start with, but then through a seriously convoluted brain process arrives at the conclusion that “It is about democracy.” In his mind the latter must be the distilled sublime product of the former. And since it is about democracy, Mr. Fog of War reasons, “the West must respond accordingly.”
I cannot fathom why on earth this concept, “democracy”, this linguistic abstraction, stirs such passions in a man who, by all formal counts, should rank among the best that his nation, with its long traditions of progress, has produced. Isn’t this guy in actual fact taking us a thousand years back and calling for a Holy Crusade against Russia? The crusades were military campaigns in the name of a God and true interpretation of the scripture. They were sanctioned by the Roman Catholic Church during the Middle Ages with the ostensible goal to restore Christian access to holy places in Jerusalem. In reality, they were aggressive Western expansion attempts driven by economic and political reasons, fueled by personal ambitions and served to the European sheeple packaged in lofty religious causes.
Rasmussen, the former High Priest of NATO, is driven by all these exactly same considerations. He is supporting the NATO war effort to take a stranglehold of Russia with the actual aim to create a global hegemony led by the Western elite. As in the Middle Ages, so today, the idea of a war for the sake of pure conquest does not sell with the herds — if the pasture is good enough, then why bother — therefore, all you need to do is replace God with Democracy and the Ten Commandments with Western Values. (What easy work for the modern day apostles, the Western stink tanks — they do not actually have to spell out what these “values” are, not even in a list of ten).….
